Luke Tsuchiya, Tufts University
This paper examines the effects of trade liberalization on different communities and the importance of regional integration for calculating the effect of trade shocks. I test whether there is treatment effect heterogeneity of changes in Chinese import exposure for counties with higher levels of non-local retail sales per capita in the pre-shock period. Import shocks lower median income growth but do so more for counties with lower levels of pre-shock retail sales. This effect and attenuation with retail sales is present in both manufacturing and non-manufacturing industries.
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