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My focus on the effects of imports on company training is new to the literature, and it is also important as such training is an important factor in earnings and job security. Specifically, I look at the effect of imports on the incidence of company training for individuals in the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth. Overall, I find that import competition has a negative effect on company training. I also find that imports from low- and middle-income countries have a more severe negative effect on training than do those from high-income countries. However, I do not find a significant difference between the effect of imports in high-technology and low-technology industries. Finally, I find that the final goods imports in an industry have a more negative effect on training than the intermediate goods imports in the industry. Thus it is not surprising there is pressure to limit import competition, especially from low- or middle-income countries, since reduced training opportunities for U.S. workers can be perceived as reducing "good jobs."

My research on company training suggests that nonproduction workers bear the brunt of this negative effect on training, while the effect on production workers is insignificant. In my chapter on the employment and wage effects of trade, I demonstrate that the results in my training study do not tell the full story. Typically, production workers might suffer lower employment and wage levels when faced with import competition. On the other hand, rising demand for exports, through their effect on mounting domestic product demand, is associated with increases in industry employment and wage levels for both production and nonproduction workers. This suggests that when we discuss the effect of trade on employment and wages, we should not overlook the positive effect that arises from increasing foreign demand.

The effect of trade on the U.S. labor market is of great importance given the continuing rise in trade in both the manufacturing and service sectors. My dissertation suggests that workers could potentially bear greater costs in the face of increased globalization. How to mitigate these potential negative effects is a crucial policy question.