The Effect of the Japan Trade Shock on Black and White Workers

This grant is co-funded with the W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research.

The decline in manufacturing is a key reason why the Black-White wage gap, which closed significantly from the 1930s to the 1970s, stopped converging in the 1970s and still persists. Coinciding with the decline in manufacturing was a dramatic increase in import competition from Japan. Doctoral student in economics Brandon Enriquez will investigate whether the increase in Japanese imports impacted manufacturing employment and if these impacts varied by race. He will analyze data from the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, the United Nations Comtrade database, the Census, and the NBER-CES Manufacturing Database for his study.