Abstract
The main purpose of this thesis is to investigate the relationship between changes in wage rates in Taiwanese manufacturing sector and factors such as value-added in exports, export intensity and import share. The empirical analysis uses data on individual wage, age, education level, industry, industry-level import and export, and export value added from 1996 to 2011. After a preliminary analysis using the ordinary least squares method, this thesis adopts quantile regressions to further analyze the effects of international trade factors on wage distribution. The wage distribution is divided into five quantiles: 10%, 25%, 50%, 75%, and 90%. I also compare the results for industries with high and low export propensities, and estimate the effect of domestic value-added-gross exports ratio on wage for each industry. The result from quantile regressions show that the domestic value-added embodied in gross exports as a fraction of gross exports is positively associated with wage rates, and this effect is larger for higher wage percentiles. Given the fact that the value-added of Taiwanese manufacturing sector has declined during the sample period, this finding might help explain why the wage rates have stagnated among the high wage groups in Taiwan in recent years.