IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/cje/issued/v40y2007i1p69-92.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Do tariff reductions affect the wages of workers in protected industries? Evidence from the Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement

Author

Listed:
  • James Townsend

Abstract

In this paper, I use Canadian micro-data on individual workers to investigate the effect on wages of the tariff reductions mandated by the Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement (CUSFTA). The literature on industry wage premia has revealed that the industry of employment is an important determinant of a worker's wage. My findings indicate that relative wages fell in those industries that faced the deepest tariff cuts. This effect was experienced regardless of whether or not workers belonged to a union, suggesting that CUSFTA reduced the returns to industry-specific human capital for those workers in the mostly heavily affected industries.

Suggested Citation

  • James Townsend, 2007. "Do tariff reductions affect the wages of workers in protected industries? Evidence from the Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement," Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Economics Association, vol. 40(1), pages 69-92, February.
    • Handle: RePEc:cje:issued:v:40:y:2007:i:1:p:69-92
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    To our knowledge, this item is not available for download. To find whether it is available, there are three options:
    1. Check below whether another version of this item is available online.
    2. Check on the provider's web page whether it is in fact available.
    3. Perform a search for a similarly titled item that would be available.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Noel Gaston & Daniel Trefler, 1997. "The Labour Market Consequences of the Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement," Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Economics Association, vol. 30(1), pages 18-41, February.
    2. Daniel Trefler, 2004. "The Long and Short of the Canada-U. S. Free Trade Agreement," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 94(4), pages 870-895, September.
    3. Colin Lawrence & Robert Z. Lawrence, 1985. "Manufacturing Wage Dispersion: An End Game Interpretation," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 16(1), pages 47-116.
    4. Eugene Beaulieu, 2000. "The Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement and labour market adjustment in Canada," Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Economics Association, vol. 33(2), pages 540-563, May.
    5. Goldberg, Pinelopi Koujianou & Pavcnik, Nina, 2005. "Trade, wages, and the political economy of trade protection: evidence from the Colombian trade reforms," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 66(1), pages 75-105, May.
    6. Surendra Gera & Gilles Grenier, 1994. "Interindustry Wage Differentials and Efficiency Wages: Some Canadian Evidence," Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Economics Association, vol. 27(1), pages 81-100, February.
    7. Peter Kuhn, 1998. "Innis Lecture: Unions and the Economy: What We Know; What We Should Know," Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Economics Association, vol. 31(5), pages 1033-1056, November.
    8. Lawrence F. Katz & Lawrence H. Summers, 1989. "Industry Rents: Evidence and Implications," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 20(1989 Micr), pages 209-290.
    9. Gaston, Noel & Trefler, Daniel, 1995. "Union wage sensitivity to trade and protection: Theory and evidence," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 39(1-2), pages 1-25, August.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Zhou, Yonghong & Zheng, Xian & Yuan, Ziqing, 2022. "Trade liberalization and wages: Evidence from the closer economic partnership arrangement between mainland China and Hong Kong," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 61(C).
    2. Sébastien Breau & David L. Rigby, 2010. "International trade and wage inequality in Canada," Journal of Economic Geography, Oxford University Press, vol. 10(1), pages 55-86, January.
    3. Moritz Ritter, 2015. "Trade and inequality in a directed search model with firm and worker heterogeneity," Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Economics Association, vol. 48(5), pages 1902-1916, December.
    4. Alexander Murray, 2017. "The Effect of Import Competition on Employment in Canada: Evidence from the 'China Shock'," CSLS Research Reports 2017-03, Centre for the Study of Living Standards.
    5. Sébastien Breau, 2010. "Low-Income-Country Import Competition and the Structure of Earnings Inequality in Canada, 1996–2001," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 42(8), pages 1964-1986, August.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Mary Amiti & Jozef Konings, 2007. "Trade Liberalization, Intermediate Inputs, and Productivity: Evidence from Indonesia," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 97(5), pages 1611-1638, December.
    2. Moritz Ritter, 2015. "Trade and inequality in a directed search model with firm and worker heterogeneity," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 48(5), pages 1902-1916, December.
    3. Sébastien LaRochelle‐Côté, 2007. "Tariff reduction and employment in Canadian manufacturing," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 40(3), pages 843-860, August.
    4. Overman, Henry George & Winters, L. Alan, 2003. "Trade shocks and industrial location: the impact of EEC accession on the UK," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 121691, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    5. Jen Baggs & James A Brander, 2006. "Trade liberalization, profitability, and financial leverage," Journal of International Business Studies, Palgrave Macmillan;Academy of International Business, vol. 37(2), pages 196-211, March.
    6. Chang, Yang-Ming & Sargsyan, Ruben, 2022. "Revenue-neutral or profit-neutral tariff and tax reforms under imperfect competition: Welfare implications," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 80(C), pages 1-11.
    7. Larochelle-Cote, Sebastien, 2005. "Summary Of: Tariff Reduction and Employment in Canadian Manufacturing, 1988-1994," Analytical Studies Branch Research Paper Series 2005259e, Statistics Canada, Analytical Studies Branch.
    8. Halit Yanikkaya, 2013. "Is trade liberalization a solution to the unemployment problem?," Portuguese Economic Journal, Springer;Instituto Superior de Economia e Gestao, vol. 12(1), pages 57-85, April.
    9. Ian Keay, 2003. "An Empty Promise: Average Cost Savings and Scale Economies among Canadian and American Manufacturers, 1910‐1988," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 70(2), pages 374-388, October.
    10. Ian Keay, 2001. "An Empty Promise: Average Cost Savings And Scale Economies Among Canadian And American Manufacturers, 1910-1998," Working Paper 1002, Economics Department, Queen's University.
    11. Jen Baggs & Eugene Beaulieu & Loretta Fung, 2009. "Firm survival, performance, and the exchange rate," Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Economics Association, vol. 42(2), pages 393-421, May.
    12. Nannan Lundin & Lihong Yun, 2009. "International Trade and Inter‐Industry Wage Structure in Swedish Manufacturing: Evidence from Matched Employer–Employee Data," Review of International Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 17(1), pages 87-102, February.
    13. Alla Lileeva, 2008. "Trade liberalization and productivity dynamics: evidence from Canada," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 41(2), pages 360-390, May.
    14. Baggs, Jennifer & Brander, James A., 2005. "Liberalisation des echanges, rentabilite et levier financier," Direction des études analytiques : documents de recherche 2005256f, Statistics Canada, Direction des études analytiques.
    15. Kapri, Kul, 2016. "Productivity, firm size and trade liberalization in a partner country: Evidence from Korean firm-level data," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 45(C), pages 572-583.
    16. Alexander Murray, 2017. "The Effect of Import Competition on Employment in Canada: Evidence from the 'China Shock'," CSLS Research Reports 2017-03, Centre for the Study of Living Standards.
    17. Lileeva, Alla, 2008. "Trade Liberalization and Productivity Dynamics: Evidence from Canada," Economic Analysis (EA) Research Paper Series 2008051e, Statistics Canada, Analytical Studies Branch.
    18. Jen Baggs, 2005. "Firm survival and exit in response to trade liberalization," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 38(4), pages 1364-1383, November.
    19. Amiti, Mary & Cameron, Lisa, 2012. "Trade Liberalization and the Wage Skill Premium: Evidence from Indonesia," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 87(2), pages 277-287.
    20. Hoekman & Bernard & Winters, L. Alan, 2005. "Trade and employment : stylized facts and research findings," Policy Research Working Paper Series 3676, The World Bank.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • F16 - International Economics - - Trade - - - Trade and Labor Market Interactions
    • F14 - International Economics - - Trade - - - Empirical Studies of Trade

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:cje:issued:v:40:y:2007:i:1:p:69-92. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Prof. Werner Antweiler (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/ceaaaea.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.