The China Syndrome: Local Labor Market Effects of Import Competition in the United States
研究1990-2007年间中国进口竞争加剧对美国地方劳动力市场的影响，发现进口竞争导致失业率上升、劳动参与率下降和工资降低，解释了美国制造业就业下降的四分之一。
We analyze the effect of rising Chinese import competition between 1990 and 2007 on US local labor markets, exploiting cross-market variation in import exposure stemming from initial differences in industry specialization and instrumenting for US imports using changes in Chinese imports by other high-income countries. Rising imports cause higher unemployment, lower labor force participation, and reduced wages in local labor markets that house import-competing manufacturing industries. In our main specification, import competition explains one-quarter of the contemporaneous aggregate decline in US manufacturing employment. Transfer benefits payments for unemployment, disability, retirement, and healthcare also rise sharply in more trade-exposed labor markets.