Does Trade Increase Protests?

• In Event: Trade Policy in Contested America

Abstract

This paper examines the effect of trade on protests. Since trade affects the domestic distribution of income, trade can increase or decrease civil conflict depending on its effect on inequality. Even though there have been many cases of protests against trade, which is a dominant instrument of globalization, there is little empirical research on the effect of trade on protests. This paper primarily is based on Stolper-Samuelson Theorem in which increases in international trade lead to increased returns to abundant factors. The urban working class has a lower per-capita income than capital- and land-owning elites, leading to grievances and demands for redistribution. International trade can mitigate these grievances and demands through higher wages and lower prices for consumer goods. By employing multiple empirical strategies and newly released data on the urban social disorder (1960-2014) in 103 cities around the world, this paper finds that trade is associated with lower domestic turmoils.

Authors

• Haeyong Lim, Jeju Peace Institute

• Henry Thomson, Arizona State University