PROTECTION, TRADE, AND WAGES - EVIDENCE FROM UNITED-STATES MANUFACTURING

This paper investigates the effects of international trade policy on w ages in U.S. manufacturing industries in 1983. The data set combines m icro labor market data with comprehensive data on tariffs and nontarif f trade barriers such as quotas and antidumping duties. The authors fi nd that workers in unprotected, export-oriented industries had higher wages than workers with similar observable characteristics in protecte d, import-competing industries; more specifically, exports had a posit ive wage effect and imports had a smaller negative wage effect. Other findings are that nontariff barriers had no significant effect on wage s, and tariffs appear to have had a large negative wage effect, even a fter the authors control for the trade protection received by low-wage industries.