The purpose of this paper is to offer a suggestive example of how a process quite distinct from either the simple trade or the simple technology story might be central to understanding growing inequality. The basic idea is that the labor market might, over some range of conditions, be characterized by multiple locally stable equilibria, some more egalitarian than others. If that is the case, unequalizing shocks of modest size - shocks that could originate either in changing trade opportunities or in changing technology, or for that matter in both - could push the economy out of an egalitarian equilibrium and thus set in motion a cumulative process of growing inequality. In the specific model presented here that process, which essentially feeds on itself, could easily be misinterpreted as exogenous skill-biased technical change. Source: AND NOW FOR SOMETHING COMPLETELY DIFFERENT: AN ALTERNATIVE MODEL OF TRADE, EDUCATION, AND INEQUALITY