abstract: 'While many studies have quantified the impact of Chinese import

  competition on U.S. wages, to my knowledge this is the first study to

  also estimate the effect on fringe benefits. This is important because

  in the United States, fringe benefits are now more than 30\% of

  compensation. I first argue that if trade affects the share of benefits

  in compensation, focusing on wages and ignoring fringe benefits may give

  us misleading estimates of the effect of trade on workers'' total

  compensation. Using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth

  1979, I track the subsequent outcomes of workers who were working in

  manufacturing in 1996. Similar to Autor et al. (2014), I find that

  exposure to Chinese competition negatively affects wage income. As to

  fringe benefits, the effect on participation in a defined benefit

  retirement plan and the availability of vacation days is negative and

  significant. The effects on other benefits are usually negative but

  imprecisely estimated. The effect on the overall dollar value of

  benefits is negative and significant. However, in percentage terms, the

  effect on benefits is smaller than the effect on wages. This suggests

  that, in percentage terms, the impact of Chinese import competition on

  overall compensation is less severe than the one found in Autor et al.

  (2014) for wages.'
affiliation: 'Tempesti, T (Corresponding Author), Univ Massachusetts, Dept Econ, Lowell,
  MA 01854 USA.

  Tempesti, Tommaso, Univ Massachusetts, Dept Econ, Lowell, MA 01854 USA.'
author: Tempesti, Tommaso
author-email: tommaso\_tempesti@uml.edu
author_list:
- family: Tempesti
  given: Tommaso
da: '2023-09-28'
doi: 10.1002/soej.12426
eissn: 2325-8012
files: []
issn: 0038-4038
journal: SOUTHERN ECONOMIC JOURNAL
keywords-plus: TRADE; IMPACT; WAGES; INEQUALITY; EMPLOYMENT
language: English
month: APR
number: '4'
number-of-cited-references: '45'
pages: 1307-1337
papis_id: 924ffe32a436c2e4a3fcf070e7f1427c
ref: Tempesti2020fringebenefits
times-cited: '0'
title: Fringe Benefits and Chinese Import Competition
type: Article
unique-id: WOS:000524455100002
usage-count-last-180-days: '0'
usage-count-since-2013: '1'
volume: '86'
web-of-science-categories: Economics
year: '2020'