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  3. American Economic Review
  4. May 2013
  5. The Geography of Trade and Technology Shocks in the United States

The Geography of Trade and Technology Shocks in the United States

  • David H. Autor
  • David Dorn
  • Gordon H. Hanson
American Economic Review
vol. 103, no. 3, May 2013
(pp. 220-25)
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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.

Citation

Autor, David H., David Dorn, and Gordon H. Hanson. 2013. "The Geography of Trade and Technology Shocks in the United States." American Economic Review, 103 (3): 220-25. DOI: 10.1257/aer.103.3.220

Additional Materials

JEL Classification

  • D31 Personal Income, Wealth, and Their Distributions
  • F16 Trade and Labor Market Interactions
  • O33 Technological Change: Choices and Consequences; Diffusion Processes
  • R12 Size and Spatial Distributions of Regional Economic Activity
  • R23 Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics: Regional Migration; Regional Labor Markets; Population; Neighborhood Characteristics