Working Paper

Job creation, job destruction, and international competition: job flows and trade: the case of NAFTA

Abstract: This paper is a chapter in our forthcoming monograph, Job Creation, Job Destruction, and International Competition (W.E. Upjohn Institute 2003), and expands on the ideas advanced in Klein, Schuh, and Triest (2003). The chapter is a case study of the impact of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) on the U.S. labor market in three industries: textiles and apparel, chemicals, and automobiles. NAFTA significantly altered the trade environment for these industries and contributed to changes in the bilateral export-import structure among the United States, Canada, and Mexico. Our innovation is to examine NAFTA's effect on gross job creation and destruction, the components of change in net employment. Except for a more rapid decline in apparel employment, there is little evidence of NAFTA's having had major effects on either net employment or gross job flows in these industries.

Keywords: North American Free Trade Agreement; Labor market; Automobile industry and trade; Chemical Industry; Textile industry; Clothing trade;

Bibliographic Information

Provider: Federal Reserve Bank of Boston

Part of Series: Working Papers

Publication Date: 2002

Number: 02-8