IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/iza/izadps/dp5368.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Workers' Views of the Impact of Trade on Jobs

Author

Listed:
  • Brown, Clair

    (University of California, Berkeley)

  • Lane, Julia

    (New York University)

  • Sturgeon, Timothy

    (MIT)

Abstract

Although public policy is influenced by the perception that workers worry about the impact of trade on their jobs, there is little empirical evidence on what shapes such views. This paper uses new data to examine how workers’ perceptions of the impact of trade are related to their career paths, job characteristics, and local labor market conditions. Surprisingly, given prior literature, we find that workers’ perceptions primarily reflect local labor market conditions and education rather than labor market experiences or job characteristics.

Suggested Citation

  • Brown, Clair & Lane, Julia & Sturgeon, Timothy, 2010. "Workers' Views of the Impact of Trade on Jobs," IZA Discussion Papers 5368, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    • Handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp5368
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://docs.iza.org/dp5368.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Avraham Ebenstein & Ann Harrison & Margaret McMillan & Shannon Phillips, 2022. "Estimating The Impact Of Trade And Offshoring On American Workers Using The Current Population Surveys," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Globalization, Firms, and Workers, chapter 12, pages 275-289, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    2. John M. Abowd & Patrick Corbel & Francis Kramarz, 1999. "The Entry And Exit Of Workers And The Growth Of Employment: An Analysis Of French Establishments," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 81(2), pages 170-187, May.
    3. Barry Eichengreen, 2011. "The Great Recession and the Great Depression: Reflections and Lessons," Central Banking, Analysis, and Economic Policies Book Series, in: Luis Felipe Céspedes & Roberto Chang & Diego Saravia (ed.),Monetary Policy under Financial Turbulence, edition 1, volume 16, chapter 3, pages 049-058, Central Bank of Chile.
    4. Mayda, Anna Maria & Rodrik, Dani, 2005. "Why are some people (and countries) more protectionist than others?," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 49(6), pages 1393-1430, August.
    5. Ralph E. Gomory & William J. Baumol, 2001. "Global Trade and Conflicting National Interests," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262072092, April.
    6. John J. Abowd & John Haltiwanger & Julia Lane, 2004. "Integrated Longitudinal Employer-Employee Data for the United States," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 94(2), pages 224-229, May.
    7. Alan S. Blinder & Alan B. Krueger, 2013. "Alternative Measures of Offshorability: A Survey Approach," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 31(S1), pages 97-128.
    8. Hainmueller, Jens & Hiscox, Michael J., 2006. "Learning to Love Globalization: Education and Individual Attitudes Toward International Trade," International Organization, Cambridge University Press, vol. 60(2), pages 469-498, April.
    9. Dani Rodrik, 1998. "Has Globalization Gone Too Far?," Challenge, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 41(2), pages 81-94, March.
    10. repec:pri:cepsud:190blinder is not listed on IDEAS
    11. O'Rourke, Kevin, 2003. "Heckscher-Ohlin Theory and Individual Attitudes Towards Globalization," CEPR Discussion Papers 4018, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    12. Desireé van Welsum & Xavier Reif, 2009. "We Can Work It Out: The Globalization of ICT-Enabled Services," NBER Chapters, in: International Trade in Services and Intangibles in the Era of Globalization, pages 289-325, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    13. Author-Name: Alan S. Blinder & Alan B. Krueger, 2004. "What Does the Public Know about Economic Policy, and How Does It Know It?," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 35(1), pages 327-397.
    14. Robert E. Hall, 2006. "Job Loss, Job Finding and Unemployment in the US Economy over the Past Fifty Years," NBER Chapters, in: NBER Macroeconomics Annual 2005, Volume 20, pages 101-166, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    15. Brown, Clair & Haltiwanger, John & Lane, Julia, 2006. "Economic Turbulence," University of Chicago Press Economics Books, University of Chicago Press, number 9780226076324, December.
    16. Alan S. Blinder & Alan B. Krueger, 2013. "Alternative Measures of Offshorability: A Survey Approach," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 31(S1), pages 97-128.
    17. Daniel Aaronson & Daniel G. Sullivan, 1998. "The decline of job security in the 1990s: displacement, anxiety, and their effect on wage growth," Economic Perspectives, Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, vol. 22(Q I), pages 17-43.
    18. Abowd, John M. & Vilhuber, Lars, 2011. "National estimates of gross employment and job flows from the Quarterly Workforce Indicators with demographic and industry detail," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 161(1), pages 82-99, March.
    19. Bardhan, Ashok Deo & Kroll, Cynthia, 2003. "The New Wave of Outsourcing," Fisher Center for Real Estate & Urban Economics, Research Reports qt02f8z392, Fisher Center for Real Estate & Urban Economics, UC Berkeley.
    20. Kenneth F. Scheve & Matthew J. Slaughter, 2001. "Globalization and the Perceptions of American Workers," Peterson Institute Press: All Books, Peterson Institute for International Economics, number 109, April.
    21. Melvin Stephens, 2004. "Job Loss Expectations, Realizations, and Household Consumption Behavior," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 86(1), pages 253-269, February.
    22. Ann E. Harrison & Margaret S. Mcmillan & Clair Null, 2022. "U.S. Multinational Activity Abroad and U.S. Jobs: Substitutes or Complements?," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Globalization, Firms, and Workers, chapter 10, pages 235-253, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    23. Schmidt, Stefanie R, 1999. "Long-Run Trends in Workers' Beliefs about Their Own Job Security: Evidence from the General Social Survey," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 17(4), pages 127-141, October.
    24. Michael Hoffman, 2009. "What explains attitudes across US trade policies?," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 138(3), pages 447-460, March.
    25. Richard G. Anderson & Charles S. Gascon, 2007. "The perils of globalization: offshoring and economic insecurity of the American worker," Working Papers 2007-004, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Liu, Runjuan & Trefler, Daniel, 2019. "A sorted tale of globalization: White collar jobs and the rise of service offshoring," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 118(C), pages 105-122.
    2. Wei, Xuan & Meng, Xianwei & Thornsbury, Suzanne, 2013. "A Structural Estimation of the Employment Effects of Offshoring in the U.S. Labor Market," 2013 Annual Meeting, August 4-6, 2013, Washington, D.C. 150730, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    3. Cook Nathaniel P.S. & Underwood Robert L., 2012. "Attitudes Toward Economic Globalization: Does Knowledge Matter?," Global Economy Journal, De Gruyter, vol. 12(4), pages 1-20, December.
    4. Ina Jäkel & Marcel Smolka, 2013. "Individual Attitudes Towards Trade: Stolper-Samuelson Revisited," Open Economies Review, Springer, vol. 24(4), pages 731-761, September.
    5. Ehrlich Sean D, 2010. "Who Supports Compensation? Individual Preferences for Trade-Related Unemployment Insurance," Business and Politics, De Gruyter, vol. 12(1), pages 1-24, April.
    6. Geishecker, Ingo & Riedl, Maximilian & Frijters, Paul, 2012. "Offshoring and job loss fears: An econometric analysis of individual perceptions," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 19(5), pages 738-747.
    7. Wei, Xuan & Meng, Xianwei & Thornsbury, Suzanne, 2013. "A Structural Estimation of the Employment Effects of Offshoring in the U.S. Labor Market," 2013 Annual Meeting, August 4-6, 2013, Washington, D.C. 151278, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    8. Thomas Kemeny & David Rigby, 2012. "Trading away what kind of jobs? Globalization, trade and tasks in the US economy," Review of World Economics (Weltwirtschaftliches Archiv), Springer;Institut für Weltwirtschaft (Kiel Institute for the World Economy), vol. 148(1), pages 1-16, April.
    9. C Gopinath & Antonin Ricard, 2013. "Executives' attitudes towards globalisation," Post-Print hal-03577596, HAL.
    10. Ejaz Ghani & William R. Kerr & Christopher Stanton, 2014. "Diasporas and Outsourcing: Evidence from oDesk and India," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 60(7), pages 1677-1697, July.
    11. repec:ilr:articl:v:65:y:2012:i:2:p:263-285 is not listed on IDEAS
    12. Pierre Brochu & Louis-Philippe Morin, 2011. "Union Membership and Perceived Job Insecurity: 30 Years of Evidence from the American General social Survey," Working Papers 1106E, University of Ottawa, Department of Economics.
    13. Murard, Elie, 2017. "Less Welfare or Fewer Foreigners? Immigrant Inflows and Public Opinion towards Redistribution and Migration Policy," IZA Discussion Papers 10805, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    14. Hayat, Muhammad Azmat & Farvaque, Etienne, 2012. "Public attitudes towards central bank independence: Lessons from the foundation of the ECB," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 28(4), pages 512-523.
    15. Claudia M. Buch & Jörn Kleinert, 2007. "Multinational Firms and New Protectionisms," IAW Discussion Papers 33, Institut für Angewandte Wirtschaftsforschung (IAW).
    16. Gordon H. Hanson & Kenneth Scheve & Matthew J. Slaughter, 2007. "Public Finance And Individual Preferences Over Globalization Strategies," Economics and Politics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 19(1), pages 1-33, March.
    17. Davis, Steven J. & Faberman, R. Jason & Haltiwanger, John, 2012. "Labor market flows in the cross section and over time," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 59(1), pages 1-18.
    18. Pierre Brochu & Lu Zhou, 2009. "Is job insecurity on the rise? Evidence from Canadian perception data," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 42(4), pages 1305-1325, November.
    19. Pierre Brochu & Louis-Philippe Morin, 2012. "Union Membership and Perceived Job Insecurity: Thirty Years of Evidence from the American General Social Survey," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 65(2), pages 263-285, April.
    20. Barbara Dluhosch & Daniel Horgos, 2013. "Trading Up the Happiness Ladder," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 113(3), pages 973-990, September.
    21. Eppinger, Peter S., 2019. "Service offshoring and firm employment," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 117(C), pages 209-228.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    job loss; local labor markets; job characteristics; trade; globalization; job security;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J21 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Labor Force and Employment, Size, and Structure
    • J08 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - General - - - Labor Economics Policies

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp5368. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Holger Hinte (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/izaaade.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.