Why have white, less educated voters left the Democratic Party over the past few decades? Scholars have proposed ethnocentrism, social issues and deindustrialization as potential answers. We highlight the role played by the 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). In event-study...

Since the 1970s, computerized machine tools have been replacing semi-skilled manufacturing workers, contributing to factory automation. We build a novel measure of exposure to computer numerical control (CNC) based on initial variation in tool types across industries and differential shifts...