Cheap Imports and the Loss of U.S. Manufacturing Jobs
January 2016
Working Paper Number:
CES-16-05
Abstract
This paper examines the role of international trade, and specifically imports from low-wage countries, in determining patterns of job loss in U.S. manufacturing industries between 1992 and 2007. Motivated by intuitions from factor-proportions-inspired work on offshoring and heterogeneous firms in trade, we build industry-level measures of import competition. Combining worker data from the Longitudinal Employer-Household Dynamics dataset, detailed establishment information from the Census of Manufactures, and transaction-level trade data, we find that rising import competition from China and other developing economies increases the likelihood of job loss among manufacturing workers with less than a high school degree; it is not significantly related to job losses for workers with at least a college degree.
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:
exogeneity,
endogeneity,
manufacturing,
industrial,
import,
export,
foreign trade,
international trade,
employ,
labor,
recession,
exporter,
immigrant,
multinational,
importing,
workforce,
industry heterogeneity,
manufacturing industries,
occupation,
trade models,
imported,
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Census of Manufactures,
Standard Industrial Classification,
National Science Foundation,
Center for Economic Studies,
Ordinary Least Squares,
Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development,
World Bank,
Chicago Census Research Data Center,
Employer Identification Numbers,
North American Industry Classification System,
Alfred P Sloan Foundation,
Longitudinal Employer Household Dynamics,
Heckscher-Ohlin,
Harmonized System,
Business Register Bridge,
United Nations,
North American Industry Classi,
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Customs and Border Protection,
International Trade Research Report
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