BFI Student Lunch Series – Trading Goods for Lives: NAFTA’s Mortality Impacts and Implications

BFI’s Student Lunch Series invites prominent speakers to engage undergraduate and graduate students in discussions on economics. The talks highlight the practical use of economics for answering real-world questions pertinent to businesses and policy makers.

Lunch will be provided.

Free trade agreements are typically evaluated on their economic gains, but what about their costs in human lives? In this talk, Professor Matthew Notowidigdo will present his recent research with Amy Finkelstein (MIT) and Steven Shi (MIT) examining the mortality consequences of local labor market exposure to the 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement.

In parts of the US where workers faced heavier competition from Mexican imports after NAFTA, residents were more likely to die in the 15 years after the deal took effect. Over this same period, areas with average exposure saw death rates increase by 0.68 percent annually — large enough to more than offset the agreement’s estimated nationwide welfare gains. Death rates rose across age and sex groups, but working-age men, who lost manufacturing jobs at the highest rate, saw the largest increases.

More broadly, the authors find that when job losses are concentrated in manufacturing, residents are more likely to die, while when they fall in other sectors, death rates tend to fall.

If you have any questions, please email bfi-events@uchicago.edu.