Imports, Exports, and the American Worker

by Susan M. Collins U. S. Senator

Overview

"Will technological improvement and growth in the rest of the world cause a decline in American living standards? Can government policy in Japan and Western Europe limit the availability of high- wage jobs in America? Does expanding trade with Mexico and other developing countries with large numbers of inexpensive workers imply a continuing decline in wages for low-skilled American workers? These questions express a widespread concern about potential negative effects of import competition on domestic labor markets, but ignore potential gains to U.S. workers from exports abroad. Through U.S. exports, the rest of the world is an increasingly large indirect employer of U.S. workers, and through imports, foreign labor is an increasingly important potential substitute for U.S. workers. Bringing together the often diverse perspectives of international economists, labor economists, and policymakers, this volume analyzes how international trade affects the level and distribution of wages and employment in the United States, examines the need for government intervention, and evaluates policy options. In addition to the editor, the contributors are Jagdish Bhagwati, Columbia University and American Enterprise Institute; J. Bradford De Long, U.S. Department of the Treasury and University of California, Berkeley; I. M. Destler, University of Maryland and Institute for International Economics; Richard B. Freeman, Harvard University and London School of Economics; Louis Jacobson, WESTAT; Lori G. Kletzer, University of California, Santa Cruz; Edward Leamer, University of California, Los Angeles; Michael Piore, Massachusetts Institute of Technology; Ana Revenga and Claudio Montenegro, The World Bank; Jeffrey D. Sachs and Howard Shatz, Harvard University.

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Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780815715191
Publisher:	Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.
Publication date:	03/01/1998
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	572
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x (d)
Lexile:	1520L (what's this?)

About the Author

"Susan M. Collins is a senior fellow in Economic Studies at the Brookings Institution and a professor of economics at Georgetown University. Her publications focus on various dimensions of economic policy and performance for developing countries."

Table of Contents

Part I.	Introduction
1.	Economic Integration and the American Worker: An Overview	3
Part II.	Methodology And Evidence
2.	Trade and Wages: A Malign Relationship?	49
	Comment	77
	Comment	83
	General Discussion	94
3.	Will Globalization Dominate U.S. Labor Market Outcomes?	101
	Comment	131
	Comment	134
	General Discussion	136
4.	In Search of Stolper-Samuelson Linkages between International Trade and Lower Wages	141
	Comment	203
	Comment	206
	General Discussion	211
5.	International Trade and Wage Inequality in the United States: Some New Results	215
	Comment	241
	Comment	245
	General Discussion	251
Part III.	Broader Perspectives
6.	Trade and the Social Structure of Economic Activity	257
	Comment	287
	Comment	291
	General Discussion	298
7.	North American Integration and Factor Price Equalization: Is There Evidence of Wage Convergence between Mexico and the United States?	305
	Comment	334
	Comment	339
	General Discussion	343
8.	Trade Policy and America's Standard of Living: A Historical Perspective	349
	Comment	376
	Comment	380
	General Discussion	383
9.	Trade Politics and Labor Issues: 1953-95	389
	Comment	408
	Comment	412
	General Discussion	420
10.	International Trade and Job Displacement in U.S. Manufacturing: 1979-91	423
	Comment	457
	Comment	460
	General Discussion	467
11.	Compensation Programs	473
	Comment	524
	Comment	529
	General Discussion	533
	Conference Participants	539
	Index	541

Editorial Reviews

Contains 10 revised papers, formal comments, and summaries of discussions from a February 1995 conference. While four papers provide alternative assessments of the extent to which globalization can explain recent US labor market developments, most of the analyses focus on the impact of trade and immigration on the decline in wages of less-educated American workers since the late 1970s. Papers compare two approaches to assessing the evidence--the Heckscher-Ohlin approach, and the factor-content approach. Annotation c. by Book News, Inc., Portland, Or.

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