The political economy of trade and migration: Evidence from the U.S. Congress

Conconi, Paola; Facchini, Giovanni; Steinhardt, Max F.; Zanardi, Maurizio

Abstract

We compare the drivers of U.S. congressmen's votes on trade and migration reforms since the 1970's. Standard trade theory suggests that trade reforms that lower barriers to goods from less skilled-labor abundant countries and migration reforms that lower barriers to low-skilled migrants should have similar distributional effects, hurting low-skilled U.S. workers while benefiting high-skilled workers. In line with this prediction, we find that House members representing more skilled-labor abundant districts are more likely to support trade and migration reforms that benefit high-skilled workers. Still, important differences exist: Democrats are less supportive of trade reforms than Republicans, while the opposite is true for migration reforms; welfare state considerations and network effects shape votes on migration, but not on trade.

Citation

Conconi, P., Facchini, G., Steinhardt, M. F., & Zanardi, M. (2019). The political economy of trade and migration: Evidence from the U.S. Congress. Economics and Politics,

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Sep 19, 2019
• Online Publication Date: Nov 11, 2019
• Publication Date: Nov 11, 2019
• Deposit Date: Sep 23, 2019
• Publicly Available Date: Nov 12, 2021
• Print ISSN: 0954-1985
• Electronic ISSN: 1468-0343
• Publisher: Wiley
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Keywords: Trade reforms; immigration reforms; roll-call votes
• Public URL: https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/2648915
• Contract Date: Sep 23, 2019