The China Shock, Employment Protection, and European Jobs

The authors investigate the effects of Chinese import competition on transitions into and out of employment using comparable worker-level data for 14 European countries. Results indicate that, on average, Chinese imports are associated with an increased probability that employed workers become unemployed and with a reduction in worker flows from unemployment to employment. In countries with high levels of employment protection, incumbent workers are shielded against the risk of job loss due to Chinese competition, but unemployed workers’ prospects seem to be particularly negatively affected in these countries. The authors also provide evidence that the effects of increased Chinese imports differ by worker groups and the tasks performed on the job.

Globalization and U.S. Corporate Tax Policies: Evidence from Import Competition

This paper studies how globalization affects the corporate tax policies of U.S. manufacturing firms. Using U.S.-granting China Permanent Normal Trade Relations as a quasi-natural experiment, we find a significant increase in tax reduction activities for firms facing higher exposure to Chinese imports. The effect is more pronounced for firms with higher managerial slack. We also find that the effect is stronger for firms in less diversified products market and faster changing industries. We also show that U.S. firms facing higher Chinese import competition are more likely to engage in other tax-motivated activities: acquisition of subsidiaries in low-tax regions and suspected transfer pricing. Furthermore, we explore the 2017 tax cut and the recent U.S.-China trade dispute and find that firms engage less in tax reduction activities after the 2017 tax cut and after the tariff increase for Chinese imports. This paper was accepted by Kay Giesecke, finance.

Safeguard measures and fresh produce trade: The case of U.S. blueberry imports

Safeguard measures are used to limit excessive import growth and protect domestic producers from unfair import competition. The global safeguard investigation for blueberries highlights these concerns and raises questions about the relationship between imports, prices, and the well-being of U.S. producers. Although the U.S. International Trade Commission (USITC) ruled that imports have not caused serious injury to U.S. blueberry producers, it was important to further examine this issue. In this study, we employ an inverse demand model and dynamic Vector Autoregressive (VAR) procedure linking source-specific fresh blueberry imports from countries like Mexico and Chile to U.S. blueberry prices. Our results mostly support the USITC ruling. Results indicate that declines in U.S. prices are small when compared to the level of import growth. Impulse response functions indicate that import price shocks are not long lasting.