U.S. Job Flows and the China Shock
Upjohn Author ORCID Identifier
Publication Date
5-2019
Source
Journal of International Economics 118: 123-137
Abstract
International trade exposure affects job flows along the intensive margin (from expansions and contractions of firms' employment) as well as along the extensive margin (from births and deaths of firms). This paper uses 1992–2011 employment data from U.S. establishments to construct job flows at both the industry and commuting-zone levels, and then estimates the impact of the ‘China shock’ on each job-flow type. Using the two most influential measures of Chinese exposure, we find that the China shock affects U.S. employment mainly through deaths of establishments. At the commuting-zone level, we find evidence of large job reallocation from the Chinese-competition exposed sector to the nonexposed sector. Moreover, we demonstrate that the job-flow effects of the China shock are fundamentally different from those of a more general adverse shock affecting the U.S. demand for domestic labor.
DOI
10.1016/j.jinteco.2019.02.002
Publisher
Elsevier-ScienceDirect
Subject Areas
LABOR MARKET ISSUES; INTERNATIONAL ISSUES; Globalization; Trade issues; ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT; Local labor markets
Citation
Asquith, Brian J., Sanjana Goswami, David Neumark, and Antonio Rodriguez-Lopez. 2019. "U.S. Job Flows and the China Shock." Journal of International Economics 118: 123-137. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jinteco.2019.02.002