Made in China, Sold in Norway: Local Labor Market Effects of an Import Shock
50 Pages Posted: 31 Oct 2014
There are 2 versions of this paper
Made in China, Sold in Norway: Local Labor Market Effects of an Import Shock
Made in China, Sold in Norway: Local Labor Market Effects of an Import Shock
Date Written: June 10, 2014
Abstract
We analyze whether regional labor markets are affected by exposure to import competition from China. We find negative employment effects for low-skilled workers, and observe that low-skilled workers tend to be pushed into unemployment or leave the labor force altogether. We find no evidence of wage effects. We partly expect this in a Nordic welfare state where firms are flexible at the employment margin, while centralized wage bargaining provides less flexibility at the wage margin. Our estimates suggest that import competition from China explains almost 10% of the reduction in the manufacturing employment share from 1996 to 2007 which is half of the effect found by Autor, Dorn and Hanson (2013) for the US.
Keywords: Import Competition, Local Labor Markets, Norway
JEL Classification: F16, H53, J23, J31
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation