What if the results of one of the most influential economics papers of the past 25 years are unreliable? The “China shock” narrative–that a surge of Chinese imports destroyed American manufacturing jobs and the communities that depended on them–became conventional wisdom in Washington and beyond. But economic historian Joseph Francis argues that the claim is much weaker than it looks. Listen as he tells EconTalk’s Russ Roberts how a 2022 correction to the paper’s research design cut its estimate of lost jobs in half and erased its findings on wages and living standards. He and Russ then look at what this affair reveals about economics as a field, including the incentives that reward dramatic results, and the problems with peer review.
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