Chinese import exposure and U.S. occupational employment

Abstract

Import competition has heterogenous impacts across occupations. This paper estimates the effects of import exposure from China on employment in U.S. occupations from 2002 to 2014. After obtaining occupation-specific measures of Chinese import exposure and sorting occupations in tertiles from low to high wage, from routine to non-routine, and from low to high education, we find that Chinese import competition reduces employment in lower-indexed occupations under each sorting criteria. The employment reduction in the lowest tertile of occupations occurs in Chinese-trade exposed and unexposed sectors, which suggests the existence of local labor market effects in the presence of a strong regional concentration of lower-indexed occupations. JEL Classification: F14, F16