Coauthored

Why do politicians blame offshoring for job losses when automation is also a culprit? Why have voters responded to automation and offshoring shocks by demanding a retreat from globalization but not transfers to the unemployed? We propose that both questions are explained by the collision of economic nationalism and comparative advantage trade. Economic nationalists, who dislike vulnerability and imports, oppose policies that hamper their own state's comparative advantage industries, like regulations of high-tech automation. They are more comfortable with tariffs restricting imports. In the United States, which has a comparative advantage in the production of capital intensive automation technologies, this effect undercuts the willingness of voters to support policies that would protect jobs by regulating automation. Opportunistic politicians emphasize offshoring because economic nationalist voters support limiting imports but are conflicted in their support for limiting automation. We develop a formal model of a citizen's demand for policy in response to economic dislocation, where citizens form preferences over redistribution plans and a policy response that blunts dislocation (like a tariff or a restriction on automation). The source (foreign versus domestic) and type (labor versus automation) of a shock affects the preferred weights citizens place on each policy. We test the model’s predictions with a survey experiment fielded in the United States. Consistent with expectations, domestic automation shocks increase the weight respondents place on redistribution versus a regulatory response, while globalization shocks place much heavier weight on regulatory (tariff) responses. Altering the source of each shock - by emphasizing foreign-produced automation technology or within-country labor relocation - reweights responses towards regulations in the former case and redistribution in the latter case. Our findings contribute to our understanding of the political consequences of the current populist moment as well as give predictions about how the tide of popular sentiment could turn against automation.

Describing and explaining global interdependence from trade require an approach that incorporates fundamental features of the modern global economy, such as trade in intermediate goods, substitutability across products, and alternative trading partners. We use theoretical models of structural gravity to construct measures of dyadic dependence that directly incorporate these features. The measures are valid under a wide variety of classical and new theories for trade. The measures describe (1) how much damage is done to a country's welfare when dyadic trade is interrupted and (2) how much additional trade it would take from their existing trade partners to compensate. We then show three important findings. First, the new measures differ from traditional measures based on aggregate trade statistics in meaningful ways. Second, they tell a new story of how dependence and interdependence have changed over time. Contrary to much common wisdom, the world has _not_ marched inexorably towards greater interdependence. Average levels of dependence and interdependence -- the degree of symmetry in dependence relationships -- have both increased over time. But this is driven by a large increase in the degree to which countries are reliant on one partner, especially China. For many countries, dependence on China has risen to such a degree as to overwhelm any secular increase in interdependence. These important dynamics are obscured by aggregate trade statistics. Third, we use China's foreign assistance, as exemplified by the Belt and Road Initiative, to assess the degree to which states can successfully manipulate their dependence relationships. We find that the Chinese assistance has increased partners' dependence on China over time, without a reciprocal increase in Chinese dependence. These important effects of Chinese assistance are not apparent in analysis of aggregate trade statistics.

When one country or international organization makes accusations about violations of international law, the intended audience is often third party states who might support punishing the offender. When do these accusations persuade publics in those countries and when do they backfire? We show that reactions are consistent with a Bayesian framework that allows for both types of reactions, depending on the audience member's prior beliefs and views on the information source. We provide evidence from large survey experiments in four global swing states -- India, South Africa, Turkey, and Indonesia. Swing states are where persuasion or backlash matter most, since allegations about international law could conceivably tilt their support toward the the accuser or the accused. In our survey experiments, when the International Criminal Court makes accusations that Russia violated international law, this persuades certain subsets of the population to support sanctions and assistance for Ukraine. When the United States makes an identical accusation, this fails to persuade, and often provokes backlash, because of its lack of credibility as an accuser. We further show how accusations affect perceptions of the accuser, not just the accused. We show a dynamic feedback loop, where information sent today can increase or decrease views of the credibility of the information source, which can magnify or mute the effect of future accusations. Accusations from the ICC improve respondents' views of the Court's credibility. Accusations from the United States further undermine its credibility.

How do governments address economic shocks associated with globalization and automation in the current polarized environment? The prevailing consensus redistribution policies in response to globalization have been unsuccessful, primarily because conservatives’ reluctance to support redistribution measures leads to persistent gridlock and emphasis on tariffs. We show the history and feasibility of political support for social investment, which is a key subset of redistribution policies. Social investments are aimed at improving upward mobility and opportunity, in contrast with tax-and-transfer redistribution that compensates those harmed. We hypothesize that many citizens prefer the former because it restores perceptions of labor market fairness and increases optimism about the competitiveness of domestic production. We use local-level spending data from US counties from 1991-2023 to show how counties that were hardest hit by globalization increased their spending on education – a pillar of social investment – at faster rates than counties less hit by globalization. Remarkably, this phenomenon is present in both Republican and Democratic counties. We then analyze data from two large survey experiments (N = 3,000 and N = 4,100) showing how exposure to prompts about globalization increase support for social investment, even though they do not increase support for tax-and-transfer redistribution. We again show that these patterns are present for both conservatives and liberals, Republicans and Democrats. We use the survey experimental evidence to show how these patterns extend to economic dislocation from other sources, like automation and climate regulation. Our research provides retrospective and prospective support for the growing idea that social investment and “predistribution” are more politically feasible than tax-and-transfer redistribution. Our results paint a more optimistic picture about responses to dislocation from globalization, with implications for the feasibility of responses to the growing effects of automation regulations designed to limit climate change.