Working Paper: CEPR ID: DP10677
Authors: Daron Acemoglu; David Autor; David Dorn; Gordon H. Hanson; Brendan Price
Abstract: Even before the Great Recession, U.S. employment growth was unimpressive. Between 2000 and 2007, the economy gave back the considerable employment gains achieved during the 1990s, with a historic contraction in manufacturing employment being a prime contributor to the slump. We estimate that import competition from China, which surged after 2000, was a major force behind both recent reductions in U.S. manufacturing employment and-through input-output linkages and other general equilibrium channels-weak overall U.S. job growth. Our central estimates suggest job losses from rising Chinese import competition over 1999 through 2011 in the range of 2.0 to 2.4 million.
Keywords: Labor Demand; Trade Flows
JEL Codes: F16; J21
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| Rising import competition from China (F69) | Local employment levels (J69) |
| Rising import competition from China (F69) | US manufacturing employment (L60) |
| Increased Chinese import competition (F14) | Overall employment reduction in the entire economy (J63) |