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Who Supports Compensation? Individual Preferences for Trade-Related Unemployment Insurance

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

Sean D. Ehrlich
Sean D. Ehrlich*
Affiliation:
Florida State University
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Abstract

The political economy of trade literature argues that the policy of compensating those who lose from trade is an important component of maintaining public support for free-trade, a linkage known as the compensation hypothesis or embedded liberalism thesis. This article tests the causal mechanisms underlying the compensation hypothesis by examining support for trade-related compensation using survey data from the United States. Expectations about the effects of trade strongly predict support for trade-related unemployment insurance, with those who expect to lose more likely to support and those who expect to gain more like to oppose, but has no influence on support for general unemployment insurance despite previous research suggesting it should.

Keywords

trade policyunemployment insurancecompensation hypothesisembedded liberalism
Type
Research Article
Information
Business and Politics , Volume 12 , Issue 1 , April 2010 , pp. 1 - 22
Copyright
Copyright © V.K. Aggarwal 2010 and published under exclusive license to Cambridge University Press 

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