• AEA in the news
  • January 28, 2016

So What Would It Mean to 'Beat China' on Trade?

The Port of Los Angeles, September 25, 2010.

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In a piece about the consequences of trade with China, the NYT Upshot blog covered a 2013 article from the American Economic Review. In The China Syndrome: Local Labor Market Effects of Import Competition in the United States, the authors compare different U.S. regions, some of which were exposed to new competition from Chinese imports during the 1990s and some of which were less affected thanks to a different industry mix. The more-exposed regions did see significantly more job losses over the 1990-2007 period, but the pain was eased by an increase flow of unemployment benefits and disability payments to these areas.