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  3. American Economic Review
  4. May 2017
  5. Trade and Manufacturing Jobs in Germany

American Economic Review

ISSN 0002-8282 (Print) | ISSN 1944-7981 (Online)

Trade and Manufacturing Jobs in Germany

  • Wolfgang Dauth
  • Sebastian Findeisen
  • Jens Suedekum
American Economic Review
vol. 107, no. 5, May 2017
(pp. 337–42)
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Abstract

The German economy exhibits rising service and declining manufacturing employment, but this decline is much sharper in import-competing than export-oriented branches. We first document the individual-level job transitions behind those trends. They are not driven by manufacturing workers who smoothly switch to services. The observed shifts are entirely due to young entrants and returnees from non-employment. We then investigate if rising trade with China and Eastern Europe causally affected those labor flows. Exploiting variation across industries and regions, we find that globalization did not speed up the manufacturing decline in Germany. It even retained those jobs in the economy.

Citation

Dauth, Wolfgang, Sebastian Findeisen, and Jens Suedekum. 2017. "Trade and Manufacturing Jobs in Germany." American Economic Review, 107 (5): 337–42. DOI: 10.1257/aer.p20171025

Additional Materials

JEL Classification

  • F14 Empirical Studies of Trade
  • F16 Trade and Labor Market Interactions
  • F22 International Migration
  • F66 Economic Impacts of Globalization: Labor
  • J61 Geographic Labor Mobility; Immigrant Workers
  • L60 Industry Studies: Manufacturing: General