ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of the book. This book provides a fairly comprehensive analysis of contemporary issues in international trade and development. It covers issues like the provisioning of the public good and its implication in a liberalised regime, crime and corruption, skilled-unskilled wage inequality, income distribution and unemployment, environmental regulation, role of educational capital, informal sector, international fragmentation and exportable quality etc. The book explains how different interconnected measures of globalisation, land augmenting technological progress and adverse supply shocks arising due to COVID-19 play a major role not only in determining skilled-unskilled wage disparity and unemployment of skilled labour but also in income distribution in general. It shows how the inflow of foreign direct investment (FDI) exerts a favourable impact on average low-skilled wage as well as on the relative wage inequality although the unemployment situation of urban unskilled workers may worsen. © 2023 selection and editorial matter, Kausik Gupta and Jayanta Kumar Dwibedi;individual chapters, the contributors. All rights reserved.