Trade-induced displacements and local labor market adjustments in the U.S.

Administrative data from the U.S. Trade Adjustment Assistance (TAA) program reveal that, across locations, one extra TAA trade-displaced worker is associated with the overall employment falling by about two workers amidst muted geographic mobility. This correlation is robust to local import penetration proxies and is corroborated using differences in the exposure of commuting zones to the plausibly exogenous normalization of U.S. trade relations with China in 2000. A Ricardian trade model with endogenous variable markups arising from head-to-head foreign competition can rationalize such a correlation. Following a trade liberalization shock, employment and earnings collapse in the less productive locations since they endogenously exhibit both higher trade-induced job losses and lower job creation, as in the data. When migration is muted in response to the trade shock, inequality increases across locations and induces transitional transfers towards decaying locations, even as employment and welfare rise in the aggregate.