The United States Manufacturing Sector

Résumé du livre

This dissertation examines the effects of the financial crisis on the trade outcomes of the United States manufacturing sector and how these outcomes in turn affected the labor market. Utilizing two datasets based on the North American Industry Classification System (NAICS), I first analyze several competing explanations for the Great Trade Collapse. Disaggregating the data by type of manufacturer and direction of trade and after conducting specification tests, I find that financial liquidity consistently has the largest impact on trade flows of all types. Inventory adjustments have a large impact on durable manufacturers and import flows. Feedback effects through loose labor markets and global supply chains became an important factor during the crisis. Considering the consequences of the trade collapse on worker outcomes in the manufacturing sector, I provide a more recent test of the competing hypotheses of skill-biased technical change and trade as the drivers behind the increasing skill premium observed in this sector. After controlling for subsector and time effects and once again specification testing, I find almost no evidence that higher levels of capital investment correlate with higher inequality between production (unskilled) and nonproduction (skilled) workers. Only weak evidence is found for such a relationship in durable manufacturers.