Survival of the Best Fit: Exposure to Low-Wage Countries and the (Uneven) Growth of US Manufacturing Plants

Andrew Bernard, J. Jensen () and Peter Schott

No WP03-3, Working Paper Series from Peterson Institute for International Economics

Abstract: We examine the relationship between import competition from low wage countries and the reallocation of US manufacturing from 1977 to 1997. Both employment and output growth are slower for plants that face higher levels of low wage import competition in their industry. As a result, US manufacturing is reallocated over time towards industries that are more capital and skill intensive. Differential growth is driven by a combination of increased plant failure rates and slower growth of surviving plants. Within industries, low wage import competition has the strongest effects on the least capital and skill intensive plants. Surviving plants that switch industries move into more capital and skill intensive sectors when they face low wage competition.

Keywords: Heckscher-Ohlin; International Trade; Import Competition; Manufacturing Employment; Manufacturing Output (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: F11 F14 L25 L60 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2003-05
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.piie.com/publications/working-papers/s ... and-uneven-growth-us (text/html)

Related works:
Journal Article: Survival of the best fit: Exposure to low-wage countries and the (uneven) growth of U.S. manufacturing plants (2006)
Working Paper: Survival of the Best Fit: Exposure to Low-Wage Countries and the (Uneven) Growth of U.S. Manufacturing Plants (2005)
Working Paper: Survival of the Best Fit: Exposure to Low-Wage Countries and the (Uneven) Growth of U.S. Manufacturing Plants (2003)
Working Paper: Survival of the best fit: exposure to low-wage countries and the (uneven) growth of U.S. manufacturing plants (2003)
Working Paper: Survival of the best fit: exposure to low-wage countries and the (uneven) growth of US manufacturing plants (2003)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:iie:wpaper:wp03-3

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Working Paper Series from Peterson Institute for International Economics Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Peterson Institute webmaster ().