Trade Adjustment: Worker-Level Evidence*

Abstract We analyze the effect of exposure to international trade on earnings and employment of U.S. workers from 1992 through 2007 by exploiting industry shocks to import competition stemming from China’s spectacular rise as a manufacturing exporter paired with longitudinal data on individual earnings by employer spanning close to two decades. Individuals who in 1991 worked in manufacturing industries that experienced high subsequent import growth garner lower cumulative earnings, face elevated risk of obtaining public disability benefits, and spend less time working for their initial employers, less time in their initial two-digit manufacturing industries, and more time working elsewhere in manufacturing and…

• NS
  National Science Foundation

  Awards: SES-1227334, 1227334
• US
  U.S. Social Security Administration
• MD
  Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación