ABSTRACT
There is little conclusive evidence, however, to support such consterna tion. Dale Belman (1988) finds variations in trade to have relatively little impact on union wages, while Colin Lawrence and Robert Z. Lawrence (1985), employing aggregate industry-level data, find a significant negative effect of import share on wages for the years 1980 and 1984, but no differ ential impact across union and nonunion sectors. Evidence of an asymmet ric response with union, but not nonunion, wages falling in the face of import competition is observed by David A. Macpherson and James B. Stewart (1990), Richard B. Freeman and Lawrence F. Katz (1991), and Noel Gaston and Daniel Trefler (1995). The effect on union wages, however, appears to depend critically on the degree of union density, declining sharply (in abso lute value) as union densities rise. Indeed, Macpherson and Stewart (1990) find evidence to suggest that imports actually raise union (and nonunion) wages in very high (70 percent) density industries, the authors attributing
the result to the existence of threat and nonunion demand effects outstrip ping any decrease in wages due to international competition.3
