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New Perspectives on the Decline of US Manufacturing Employment

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  • Schott, Peter
  • Pierce, Justin

Abstract

We use relatively unexplored dimensions of US microdata to examine how US manufacturing employment has evolved across industries, firms, establish- ments, and regions from 1977 to 2012. We show that these data provide support for both trade- and technology-based explanations of the overall decline of employment over this period, while also highlighting the difficulties of estimating an overall contribution for each mechanism. Toward that end, we discuss how further analysis of these trends might yield sharper insights.

Suggested Citation

  • Schott, Peter & Pierce, Justin, 2018. "New Perspectives on the Decline of US Manufacturing Employment," CEPR Discussion Papers 12839, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    • Handle: RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:12839
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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Us manufacturing employment; Trade; Technology;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • F6 - International Economics - - Economic Impacts of Globalization
    • J6 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers
    • E24 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Employment; Unemployment; Wages; Intergenerational Income Distribution; Aggregate Human Capital; Aggregate Labor Productivity

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