Revisiting the evidence on trade policy preferences

Abstract

Past literature has found evidence that labor market attributes affect individuals' trade policy preferences in a manner consistent with theories of international trade. This paper shows that, with the exception of education, the relationships between labor market attributes and trade policy preferences are not robust in US survey data. This suggests that either our proxies of labor market attributes are poor or our theories for what drives trade policy preferences need to be revisited. © 2011 Elsevier B.V.