The effect of import competition across occupations

Sergi Basco, Maxime Liégey, Martí Mestieri and Gabriel Smagghue

Journal of International Economics, 2025, vol. 153, issue C

Abstract: We empirically examine the effect of import competition on worker earnings across occupations. To guide our analysis, we develop a stylized model that emphasizes industries using occupations in different intensities. We show that an occupational exposure index summarizes the overall exposure of an occupation to industry-level trade shocks. Proxying these industry-level trade shocks with rising Chinese competition and using nationally representative matched employer–employee French panel data from 1993 through 2015, we obtain evidence consistent with the predictions of the model. We find that workers initially employed in occupations highly exposed to Chinese competition – as measured by our occupational exposure index – experience larger declines in earnings. The magnitude of our estimates implies that the effect of rising Chinese competition on workers’ earnings due to differences in workers’ occupations is of comparable magnitude to the effect of workers’ sector of employment. This finding suggests that accounting for the distributional effects of trade across occupations is quantitatively important.

Keywords: Occupations; Inequality; Import competition (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: F11 F14 F16 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0022199624001284
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
Working Paper: The Effect of Import Competition across Occupations (2024)
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:eee:inecon:v:153:y:2025:i:c:s0022199624001284

DOI: 10.1016/j.jinteco.2024.104001

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of International Economics is currently edited by Gourinchas, Pierre-Olivier and Rodríguez-Clare, Andrés

More articles in Journal of International Economics from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().