Brazil’s trade liberalization of the 1990s led to unexpected and long-lasting impacts on workers and a temporary rise in violence. Rafael Dix-Carneiro (Duke University) explains how regions exposed to more import competition had relatively higher unemployment and lower wages with effects lingering 15 years after Brazil first opened up to trade. Jobs in the informal sector eventually helped mediate some of the losses, but the trade-induced increase in unemployment also sparked higher homicide rates (33:29).
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- Dix-Carneiro, Rafael, and Brian K. Kovak. 2017. Trade Liberalization and Regional Dynamics. American Economic Review 107, no. 10: 2908-46.
- Dix-Carneiro, Rafael, and Brian K. Kovak. 2019. Margins of labor market adjustment to trade. Journal of International Economics 117: 125-142,
- Dix-Carneiro, Rafael, Rodrigo R. Soares, and Gabriel Ulyssea. 2018. Economic Shocks and Crime: Evidence from the Brazilian Trade Liberalization. American Economic Journal: Applied Economics 10, no. 4: 158-95.
