Dr. Joonhyung Lee published in European Economic Review

For release:  February 18, 2016

Dr. Joonhyung Lee, assistant professor of Economics, recently co-authored a paper entitled "Did China Tire Safeguard Save U.S. Workers?" The paper has been accepted by the European Economic Review for publication. Dr. Lee co-authored this work with Dr. Sunghoon Chung, a research fellow at KDI in Korea, and Dr. Thomas Osang, associate professor at Southern Methodist University.

The paper stated that although temporary trade barriers are perceived as a feasible policy instrument for securing domestic jobs in the presence of increased globalization and economic downturns, no study had assessed whether such temporary barriers had actually saved domestic jobs. To overcome this deficiency, the authors evaluated the China-specific safeguard case on consumer tires petitioned by the United States. Contrary to claims made by the Obama administration, they found that total employment and average wages in the tire industry were unaffected by the safeguard. Further analysis revealed that this result was not surprising as they found that imports from China are completely diverted to other exporting countries partly due to the strong presence of multinational corporations in the world tire market.