The impact of real exchange rate shocks on manufacturing workers: An autopsy from the MORG

We study the impact of large real exchange rate shocks on workers in sectors initially more exposed to international trade using the Current Population Survey’s (CPS) Merged Outgoing Rotation Group (MORG) from 1979 to 2010 combined with new annual measures of imported inputs, a proxy for offshoring. We find that in periods when US relative prices are high, and imports surge relative to exports, workers in sectors with greater initial exposure to international trade were more likely to be unemployed or exit the labor force a year later, but did not experience significant declines in wages conditional on being employed. Contrary to the usual narrative, we find negative wage effects for higher-wage, but not lower-wage workers, particularly for those who are lesseducated.

• Publication year

  2019

• Venue

  Journal of International Money and Finance

• Publication date

  2019-03-01

• Fields of study

  Economics

• Identifiers
  DOI 10.1016/J.JIMONFIN.2018.09.004
• External record

  Open on Semantic Scholar

• Source metadata

  Semantic Scholar

• No claims are published for this paper.

• No concepts are published for this paper.

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