ABSTRACT
This chapter analyzes the results of regressions relating jobs losses to net exports and earnings. It discusses the relationship between net exports/consumption for each broad type of job and the quality of jobs within major occupational groups. Both the regressions, which study the cross-section relationship between trade performance and job quality, and the time-series regressions, which analyze the changes in trade performance as a function of job quality, show absolutely no effect for job quality. However, there is evidence that the positive association between relatively high-paying jobs and exports was reversed when the overall trade deficit mushroomed. However, in the 1982-1985 periods, when the nation began to run up tremendous trade deficits, the relationship between the change in jobs gained due to net exports to jobs gained due to consumption ratio and good jobs disappeared. In the 1982 cross-section results, trade was also associated with good jobs and again, the higher the education level, the higher the positive coefficient.
