Globalization, Trade Imbalances, and Labor Market Adjustment

Rafael Dix-Carneiro, João Paulo Pessoa, Ricardo Reyes-Heroles and Sharon Traiberman

The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 2023, vol. 138, issue 2, 1109-1171

Abstract: We argue that modeling trade imbalances is crucial for understanding transitional dynamics in response to globalization shocks. We build and estimate a general equilibrium, multicountry, multisector model of trade with two key ingredients: (i) endogenous trade imbalances arising from households’ consumption and saving decisions; (ii) labor market frictions across and within sectors. We use our model to perform several empirical exercises. We find that the “China shock” accounted for 28% of the decline in U.S. manufacturing between 2000 and 2014—1.65 times the magnitude predicted from a model imposing balanced trade. A concurrent rise in U.S. service employment led to a negligible aggregate unemployment response. We benchmark our model’s predictions for the gains from trade against the popular ACR sufficient-statistics approach. We find that our predictions for the long-run gains from trade and consumption dynamics significantly diverge.

Date: 2023
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Related works:
Working Paper: Globalization, trade imbalances and labor market adjustment (2021)
Working Paper: Globalization, trade imbalances and labor market adjustment (2021)
Working Paper: Globalization, Trade Imbalances and Labor Market Adjustment (2021)
Working Paper: Globalization, Trade Imbalances and Labor Market Adjustment (2021)
Working Paper: Globalization, Trade Imbalances, and Labor Market Adjustment (2021)
Working Paper: Globalization, Trade Imbalances, and Labor Market Adjustment (2018)
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