Review Article
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The China Shock: Learning from Labor-Market Adjustment to Large Changes in Trade
- David H. Autor1,2,David Dorn3,4 andGordon H. Hanson2,5
- View Affiliations and Author NotesHide Affiliations and Author Notes1Department of Economics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02142; email:[email protected]2The National Bureau of Economic Research, Cambridge, Massachusetts 021383Department of Economics, University of Zurich, CH-8001 Zurich, Switzerland; email:[email protected]4Centre for Economic and Policy Research, London EC1V 0DX, United Kingdom5School of Global Policy and Strategy, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, California 92093; email:[email protected]
- Vol. 8:205-240(Volume publication date October 2016)
- First published as a Review in Advance onAugust 08, 2016
- © Annual Reviews
- View CitationHide Citation
David H. Autor, David Dorn, Gordon H. Hanson. 2016. The China Shock: Learning from Labor-Market Adjustment to Large Changes in Trade.Annual Review Economics.8:205-240.https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-economics-080315-015041
Abstract
China's emergence as a great economic power has induced an epochal shift in patterns of world trade. Simultaneously, it has challenged much of the received empirical wisdom about how labor markets adjust to trade shocks. Alongside the heralded consumer benefits of expanded trade are substantial adjustment costs and distributional consequences. These impacts are most visible in the local labor markets in which the industries exposed to foreign competition are concentrated. Adjustment in local labor markets is remarkably slow, with wages and labor-force participation rates remaining depressed and unemployment rates remaining elevated for at least a full decade after the China trade shock commences. Exposed workers experience greater job churning and reduced lifetime income. At the national level, employment has fallen in the US industries more exposed to import competition, as expected, but offsetting employment gains in other industries have yet to materialize. Better understanding when and where trade is costly, and how and why it may be beneficial, is a key item on the research agenda for trade and labor economists.





