 Trade competition and migration: Evidence from the quartz crisisJournal of International Economics, 2022, vol. 138, issue C Abstract: Foreign competition and technological change can both present threats to domestic industries, potentially resulting in out-migration from cities and regions where these industries are spatially agglomerated. In this paper, I study the migration effects of one such trade shock: The quartz crisis, which devastated the globally dominant Swiss watch industry in the 1970s. Using a differences-in-differences strategy, I show that this trade shock led to a rapid loss of population in affected areas, and a long-run change in growth patterns. This contrasts with many other studies of large trade shocks, which find little migration response. I highlight three key factors that distinguish this shock from others and may explain the divergence: (1) the crisis negatively impacted a key export industry while generating no offsetting gains, (2) the affected labor markets were highly non-diversified, and (3) the affected workers were highly mobile. Keywords: Trade competition; Technological change; Migration (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:inecon:v:138:y:2022:i:c:s002219962200085x DOI: 10.1016/j.jinteco.2022.103653 Access Statistics for this article Journal of International Economics is currently edited by Martin Uribe and Costas Arkolakis More articles in Journal of International Economics from Elsevier |
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