TY  - JOUR
AU  - Krishna,Pravin
AU  - Senses,Mine Zeynep
TI  - International Trade and Labor Income Risk in the United States
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 14992
PY  - 2009
Y2  - May 2009
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w14992
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w14992.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Pravin Krishna
Johns Hopkins University
1740 Massachusetts Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20036
Tel: 202/663 5733
Fax: 202/663 7718
E-Mail: Pravin_Krishna@jhu.edu

Mine Zeynep Senses
Johns Hopkins University
1740 Massachusetts Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20036
E-Mail: msenses@jhu.edu
AB  - This paper studies empirically the links between international trade and labor income risk faced by workers in the United States. We use longitudinal data on workers to estimate time-varying individual income risk at the industry level. We then combine our estimates of persistent labor income risk with measures of exposure to international trade to analyze the relationship between trade and labor income risk. Importantly, by contrasting estimates from various sub-samples of workers, such as those who switched to a different industry (or sector) with those who remained in the same industry throughout the sample, we study the relative importance of the different channels through which international trade affects individual income risk. Finally, we use these estimates to conduct a welfare analysis evaluating the benefits or costs of trade through the income risk channel. We find import penetration to have a statistically significant association with labor income risk in the United States, with economically significant welfare effects.
ER  -