US Labor Market Adjustment to China Trade Shocks

David H. Autor, MIT, and Gordon H. Hanson, University of California, San Diego, presented their paper “The China Shock: Learning from Labor Market Adjustment to Large Changes in Trade,” at the Institute on May 5, 2016. Discussants, including Jared Bernstein of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, also explored potential remedies, including policy recommendations, in the context of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and the Chinese exchange rate situation. 

David Autor is professor of economics at MIT, faculty research associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research, and editor-in-chief of the Journal of Economic Perspectives. Autor is the recipient of a National Science Foundation CAREER award for his research on labor market intermediation, the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Fellowship, the Sherwin Rosen Prize in 2008 for outstanding contributions in the field of labor economics, and the John T. Dunlop Outstanding Scholar Award in 2006 given by the Labor and Employment Relations Association.

Gordon Hanson holds the Pacific Economic Cooperation Chair in International Economic Relations at the University of California, San Diego, and has faculty positions in the department of economics and the School of Global Policy and Strategy (GPS), where he also is director of the Center on Global Transformation. He is former acting dean of GPS and is presently a research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research and coeditor of the Journal of Economic Perspectives.

Jared Bernstein joined the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities in May 2011 as a senior fellow. From 2009 to 2011, Bernstein was the chief economist and economic adviser to Vice President Joe Biden, executive director of the White House Task Force on the Middle Class, and a member of President Obama’s economic team. Prior to joining the Obama administration, Bernstein was a senior economist and the director of the Living Standards Program at the Economic Policy Institute in Washington.