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Cheap imports and the loss of U.S. manufacturing jobs

Author

Listed:
  • Cooke, Abigail
  • Kemeny, Thomas
  • Rigby, David
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.

Suggested Citation

  • Cooke, Abigail & Kemeny, Thomas & Rigby, David, 2013. "Cheap imports and the loss of U.S. manufacturing jobs," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 57869, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    • Handle: RePEc:ehl:lserod:57869
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    File URL: http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/57869/
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    Cited by:

    1. Luisa Gagliardi & Simona Iammarino & Andrés Rodríguez-Pose, 2021. "Exposure to OFDI and regional labour markets: evidence for routine and non-routine jobs in Great Britain [Who’s got the aces up his sleeve? Functional specialization of cities and entrepreneurship]," Journal of Economic Geography, Oxford University Press, vol. 21(5), pages 783-806.
    2. David L. Rigby & Thomas Kemeny & Abigail Cooke, 2017. "Plant exit and U.S. imports from low-wage countries," International Economics, CEPII research center, issue 149, pages 27-40.
    3. Kamal, Fariha & Lovely, Mary E., 2017. "Import competition from and offshoring to low-income countries: Implications for employment and wages at U.S. domestic manufacturers," Journal of Asian Economics, Elsevier, vol. 48(C), pages 100-119.
    4. Tempesti, Tommaso, 2015. "Fringe Benefits and Import Competition," MPRA Paper 69842, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    5. Gagliardi, Luisa & Iammarino, Simona & Rodríguez-Pose, Andrés, 2015. "Offshoring and the geography of jobs in Great Britain," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 65018, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    6. P. Michael KOSICEK & Ramesh SONI & David YERGER, 2023. "The Distribution of Relative Demand and Relative Supply Shocks for Managers Across the U.S. Economy," Economics and Applied Informatics, "Dunarea de Jos" University of Galati, Faculty of Economics and Business Administration, issue 2, pages 5-13.
    7. Abigail Cooke & Tom Kemeny & David Rigby, 2019. "Vulnerable Jobs and the Wage Effects of Import Competition," Industrial Relations: A Journal of Economy and Society, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 58(3), pages 484-521, July.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    international trade; import competition; job loss; inequality; manufacturing;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • F14 - International Economics - - Trade - - - Empirical Studies of Trade
    • F15 - International Economics - - Trade - - - Economic Integration
    • F16 - International Economics - - Trade - - - Trade and Labor Market Interactions
    • J31 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs - - - Wage Level and Structure; Wage Differentials

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