Economic Shocks and Clinging

Reviewed the Strain paper, in general he finds the "China Shock" hardened existing views among whites versus changing peoples views across the board. for example increase trade exposure increases the likelihood of an individual identifies as fundamentalist but doesn't make people more religious (table 1) no significant overall effect on views of African Americans (Table 3) however when they look at racial views in commuting zones that contained at least one county mentioned in the voting rights act (table 4) they find that the increase in imports"...significantly harden racial attitudes among whites..."Table 5 looking at the impact on views of immigrants finds the same phenomenon, whites in areas with a relatively low immigrant share had more negative attitudes towards immigrants then those living in areas with a higher immigrant population initially. same thing with guns, "...Overall, increases in import exposure are associated with increases in the likelihood a respondent owns a gun, and appear to harden attitudes against gun ownership in areas where few people own guns...."

Michael Strain and Stan Veuger, "Economic Shocks and Clinging," American Enterprise Institute, January 2019, https://www.aei.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/Economic_shocks_wp.pdf

".....We find that the sudden surge of import competition during this period did affect social attitudes in important and nuanced ways..... On balance, we interpret our findings as lending only very limited support to the hypothesis that the economic effects of globalization affect the social attitudes of whites towards immigrants, minorities, guns and religion in the aggregate. At the same time, the increase in trade with China seems to materially harden preexisting attitudes. Specifically, the stronger a sudden surge in import competition, the more likely whites are to embrace religious fundamentalism. It is in areas that have a history of racial antipathy that “the China shock” led whites to develop more strongly negative views towards African Americans. Commuting zones with low initial levels of immigration witness a rise in anti-immigrant sentiments following sudden and intense import competition. And gun ownership becomes both even less common and even less popular in areas where gun ownership was low to begin with....Appendix table A3, shows that a $1,000 increase in per worker import exposure is associated with a 4.1 percentage point increase in the probability a white respondent feels the United States should let in fewer immigrants, and a 6.3 percentage point increase in the probability a white respondent believes the United States should do more to exclude illegal immigrants. We find no significant effect on the probability a person believes that immigrants are not good for America, immigrants take jobs from native-born workers, or that the United States should let in fewer total immigrants.....Panel A shows that in commuting zones in the bottom quartile of immigrants as a share of total population in 1990, a $1,000 increase in per worker import exposure is associated with an 8.3 percent increase in the probability a white respondent believes that immigrants are not good for the United States, a 10.2 percent increase in the probability a respondent believes immigrants take jobs from native-born workers, an 8.2 percent increase in the likelihood a respondent feels the United States should let in fewer immigrants, and a 8.6 percent increase in the likelihood a respondent believes that the United States should do more to exclude undocumented immigrants. Similarly, from panel B we see that in commuting zones in the bottom decile of immigrants as a share of total population in 1990, a $1,000 increase in per worker import exposure is associated with a 8.1 percent increase in the probability a white respondent believes that immigrants are not good for the United States, a 6.3 percent increase in the probability a respondent believes immigrants take jobs from native-born workers, a 4.8 percent increase in the likelihood a respondent feels the United States should let in fewer immigrants, and a 6.9 percent increase in the likelihood a respondent believes that the United States should do more to exclude undocumented immigrants. Overall increases in import exposure appear to harden attitudes towards immigrants among white Americans, particularly in areas where the preexisting share of immigrants is low.....These results suggest a nuanced relationship between the economic disruption caused by globalization — specifically, a local labor market’s exposure to import penetration from the “China shock” — and social attitudes among whites. Increases in import exposure are associated with an increased probability that white Americans identify as fundamentalist, but appear to have no effect on whether a person views himself as religious or not. Exposure to imports from China has no discernable effect on gun ownership or disapproval of gun regulation overall, but it makes people in areas where guns are not popular to begin with even more skeptical of gun ownership. Among the general white population, an increase in import competition only marginally increases support for restrictions on immigration. However, in areas with small immigrant populations, it both increases support for more restrictive immigration policies and triggers more negative views of immigrants. A similar picture arises when we examine the relationship between a sudden surge in import competition and the racial attitudes of white Americans. While racial attitudes grow slightly more negative in general, in labor markets containing at least one country mentioned in the 1965 Voting Rights Act a sudden increase in the effects of globalization materially increases the probability white respondents report feeling African Americans are lazy, believing African Americans are generally unintelligent, and who believe that African Americans lack education. These results suggest economic disruption from increased competition from abroad may lead to a hardening of racial views in areas with a history of racial tension. Taken as a whole, the economic effects of globalization materially affect the social attitudes of whites towards immigrants, minorities, guns and religion. They do so by hardening existing views, as opposed to altering attitudes across the board. These results are, of course, ultimately derived from variation in import competition. The availability of cheaper goods and services facilitated by increases in foreign output and productivity raises the purchasing power of American consumers, and globalization increases demand for exports, along with labor demand in export-intensive firms and industries. This may well, through these channels, have the opposite effect on the social views we study here, which leaves the aggregate impact of increased globalization on said views in both specific areas and the country as a whole to be determined...."