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The Surprisingly Swift Decline of U.S. Manufacturing Employment

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  • Justin R. Pierce
  • Peter K. Schott

Abstract

This paper finds a link between the sharp drop in U.S. manufacturing employment beginning in 2001 and a change in U.S. trade policy that eliminated potential tariff increases on Chinese imports. Industries where the threat of tariff hikes declines the most experience more severe employment losses along with larger increases in the value of imports from China and the number of firms engaged in China-U.S. trade. These results are robust to other potential explanations of the employment loss, and we show that the U.S. employment trends differ from those in the EU, where there was no change in policy.

Suggested Citation

  • Justin R. Pierce & Peter K. Schott, 2012. "The Surprisingly Swift Decline of U.S. Manufacturing Employment," NBER Working Papers 18655, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:18655
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Philippe Aghion & Jing Cai & Mathias Dewatripont & Luosha Du & Ann Harrison & Patrick Legros, 2022. "Industrial Policy and Competition," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Globalization, Firms, and Workers, chapter 15, pages 349-380, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    2. Scott R. Baker & Nicholas Bloom & Steven J. Davis, 2016. "Measuring Economic Policy Uncertainty," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 131(4), pages 1593-1636.
    3. Sourafel Girma & Yundan Gong & Holger Görg & Zhihong Yu, 2009. "Can Production Subsidies Explain China's Export Performance? Evidence from Firm‐level Data," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 111(4), pages 863-891, December.
    4. Marianne Bertrand & Esther Duflo & Sendhil Mullainathan, 2004. "How Much Should We Trust Differences-In-Differences Estimates?," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 119(1), pages 249-275.
    5. Amit K. Khandelwal & Peter K. Schott & Shang-Jin Wei, 2013. "Trade Liberalization and Embedded Institutional Reform: Evidence from Chinese Exporters," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 103(6), pages 2169-2195, October.
    6. Loren Brandt & Johannes Van Biesebroeck & Luhang Wang & Yifan Zhang, 2017. "WTO Accession and Performance of Chinese Manufacturing Firms," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 107(9), pages 2784-2820, September.
    7. Barry T. Hirsch & David A. MacPherson, 2003. "Union Membership and Coverage Database from the Current Population Survey: Note," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 56(2), pages 349-354, January.
    8. Justin R. Pierce & Peter K. Schott, 2009. "A Concordance Between Ten-Digit U.S. Harmonized System Codes and SIC/NAICS Product Classes and Industries," NBER Working Papers 15548, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    9. Bai, Xue & Krishna, Kala & Ma, Hong, 2017. "How you export matters: Export mode, learning and productivity in China," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 104(C), pages 122-137.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

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    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • E0 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - General
    • F1 - International Economics - - Trade
    • J0 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - General

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