Trading Goods for Lives: NAFTA’s Mortality Impacts and Implications
We estimate the mortality effects of local labor market exposure to NAFTA and compare them to the mortality effects of other U.S. local labor market contractions. Areas more exposed to NAFTA experienced sustained increases in mortality over the subsequent 15 years. Mortality increases occurred for all broad demographic groups, but were especially pronounced among working-age men. Extending the analysis to other economic contractions, we show that the health consequences depend critically on which sectors bear the losses: declines in manufacturing employment increase local area mortality, while declines in non-manufacturing employment reduce it.
-
-
Copy CitationAmy Finkelstein, Matthew J. Notowidigdo, and Steven X. Shi, "Trading Goods for Lives: NAFTA’s Mortality Impacts and Implications," NBER Working Paper 34855 (2026), https://doi.org/10.3386/w34855.Download Citation
-
Related
More from the NBER
In addition to working papers, the NBER disseminates affiliates’ latest findings through a range of free periodicals — the NBER Reporter, the NBER Digest, the Bulletin on Health, and the Bulletin on Entrepreneurship — as well as online conference reports, video lectures, and interviews.
