Even before the Great Recession, U.S. employment growth was unimpressive. Between 2000 and 2007, the economy gave back the considerable employment gains achieved during the 1990s, with a historic contraction in manufacturing employment being a prime contributor to the slump. We estimate that...

China's emergence as a great economic power has induced an epochal shift in patterns of world trade. Simultaneously, it has toppled much of the received empirical wisdom about how labor markets adjust to trade shocks. Alongside its heralded consumer benefits, trade has both significant...

We analyze the effect of exposure to international trade on earnings and employment of U.S. workers from 1992 through 2007 by exploiting industry shocks to import competition stemming from China’s spectacular rise as a manufacturing exporter paired with longitudinal data on individual earnings...

The recent fall of labor's share of GDP in numerous countries is well-documented, but its causes are poorly understood. We sketch a "superstar firm" model where industries are increasingly characterized by "winner take most" competition, leading a small number of highly profitable (and low labor...