How Employment Framing Affects Trade Preferences: Evidence from Survey Experiments

International trade increases aggregate welfare but also creates winners and losers, making it politically contentious. Recent research has established that individuals are more sensitive to anti-trade information about the prospect of employment loss than to pro-trade information about lower prices or greater variety. In this paper, we study how individual attitudes and beliefs change in response to information about employment losses (in import-competing sectors), gains (in export-oriented sectors), and the possibility of compensation for displaced workers. To this end, we conducted a large-scale survey experiment in 18 Latin American countries using nationally representative samples. We find that anti-trade information reduces support for trade even whencompensation is mentioned, while pro-trade messages increase support only when they emphasize job gains. Belief updating about trade’s employment effects seems to be a relevant mechanism. Our findings have important implications on what types of messaging work to increase support for trade: Although compensation is often recommended to build support for trade liberalizations, it can backfire in practice. At the same time, emphasizing employment creation in export sectors offers a more effective strategy to bolster public support for trade policies.