A rising tide? The local incidence of the second wave of globalization

Abstract

We estimate the short- and long-run local labor market impacts of the large increase in U.S. imports and exports that occurred over the 1970s. We exploit the sequential opening of overseas shipping container ports over the period, which generated export and import shocks that were largely non-overlapping across U.S. labor markets thereby providing substantial variation to distinguish their effects. We find that the average net impact on the employment-to-population ratio was positive and concentrated in the initial decade, with little longer-run impact. At the same time, in-migration due to the export shock greatly exceeded out-migration due to the import shock. We show that these different migration responses were largely due to asymmetry in the housing supply curve. The largest gains accrued to residents of labor markets that simultaneously experienced a relatively large export shock, had a relatively low housing supply elasticity, and had a relatively high home-ownership rate.