Trading Goods for Lives: NAFTA’s Mortality Impacts and Implications

Amy Finkelstein, Matthew Notowidigdo and Steven X. Shi

No 34855, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

Abstract: We estimate the mortality effects of local labor market exposure to NAFTA and compare them to the mortality effects of other U.S. local labor market contractions. Areas more exposed to NAFTA experienced sustained increases in mortality over the subsequent 15 years. Mortality increases occurred for all broad demographic groups, but were especially pronounced among working-age men. Extending the analysis to other economic contractions, we show that the health consequences depend critically on which sectors bear the losses: declines in manufacturing employment increase local area mortality, while declines in non-manufacturing employment reduce it.

JEL-codes: F1 I1 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2026-02
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