“In a study published earlier this year, three academic economists examined the effects of rising imports from China on the US job market since 1990. They sought what could be called the “China effect” by looking at local labor markets, including some that were heavily affected by Chinese imports and some that were less affected. What they found were sizable negative effects in the form of lost jobs, lower wages, and lower labor-force participation. Although the job losses were concentrated in factories – accounting for one-third of the decline in US manufacturing jobs between 1990 and 2007 – the effects on wages spread throughout local economies, concluded researchers David Autor of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, David Dorn of the Center for Monetary and Financial Studies in Madrid, and Gordon Hanson of the University of California in San Diego.”
By Mark Trumbull