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American Economic Review Vol. 103 No. 3 2013

The Geography of Trade and Technology Shocks in the United States

David H. Autor1; David Dorn2; Gordon Hanson3

1 MIT Department of Economics, 50 Memorial Drive, E52-371, Cambridge, MA 02142 and NBER. · 2 CEMFI, Casado del Alisal 5, 28014 Madrid, Spain. · 3 IR/PS 0519, University of California, San Diego, 9500 Gilman Drive, La Jolla, CA 92093 and NBER.

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Abstract

This paper explores the geographic overlap of trade and technology shocks across local labor markets in the United States. Regional exposure to technological change, as measured by specialization in routine task-intensive production and clerical occupations, is largely uncorrelated with regional exposure to trade competition from China. While the impacts of technology are dispersed throughout the United States, the impacts of trade tend to be more geographically concentrated, owing in part to the spatial agglomeration of labor-intensive manufacturing. Our findings highlight the feasibility of separately identifying the impacts of recent changes in trade and technology on US regional economies.

DOI
10.1257/aer.103.3.220
Volume
103
Issue
3
Pages
220-225
Language
en
Sources
bibtex:phds-export.bib crossref openalex

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