Since the early 1980s, the U.S. economy has experienced a growing wage differential: high-skilled workers have claimed an increasing share of available income, while low-skilled workers have seen an absolute decline in real wages. How and why this disparity has arisen is a matter of ongoing...

The objective of this paper is to describe and understand the determinants of changes in the number and quality of new legal immigrants to the United States over the last 25 years. Our main interest is in understanding the behavioral response of potential immigrants to changes in the U.S....

We develop an empirical framework to assess the importance of trade and technical change on the wages of production and nonproduction workers. Trade is measured by the foreign outsourcing of intermediate inputs, while technical change is measured by the shift towards high-technology capital such...

This paper describes data on U.S. exports from 1972-1994, classified according to the Schedule B' system, Harmonized System (HS), Standard International Trade Classification (SITC, Revisions 2 and 3), and Standard Industrial Classification (SIC, 1972 basis), along with various concordances. All...

This paper describes data on U.S. imports from 1972-1994, classified according to the Tariff Schedule of the U.S. Annotated (TSUSA), Harmonized System (HS), Standard International Trade Classification (SITC, Revisions 2 and 3), and Standard Industrial Classification (SIC, 1972 basis), along with...

The purpose of the paper is to measure the potential bias in the U.S. import price index due to the appearance of new product varieties, or new foreign suppliers, and determine the effect of this bias on the estimated income elasticity of import demand. Existing import price indexes are based on...

Researchers constructing index number frequently face the problem of new (or disappearing) goods, for which the price and quantity are not available in some periods. In theory, the correct way to handle a new good is to treat its price before it appears as equal to the reservation price (i.e.,...

In this paper we quantify the potential revenue available to the U.S. from auctioning import quotas, and the resulting drop in foreign producer surplus relative to free trade. Previous estimates of auction revenue are in the range of $3 7-5.15 billion for 1986 or 1987. Using simulation results...

In this paper we measure the quality change which has occurred in U.S. steel imports during the 1969-74 VRA, using an index number method. Under this approach, the yearly changes in unit values is broken into three components: a quality-adjusted or pure price index; a quality index, which...