Michael J. Hiscox

ARTICLES:
Hiscox, Michael J. Through a Glass and Darkly: Framing Effects and Individuals’ Attitudes towards International Trade, International Organization, Vol. 60, No. 3 (Summer, 2006): 755-780. Reports results from a survey experiment showing that an anti-trade issue frame has a large (negative) impact on measured attitudes toward trade among individuals, while a pro-trade frame has no discernable impact at all.

Hainmueller, Jens and Michael J. Hiscox. Learning to Love Globalization: The Effects of Education on Individual Attitudes towards International Trade, International Organization, Vol. 60, No. 2 (Spring, 2006): 469-498. Shows that the effects of college education on the likelihood that an individual will favor trade liberalization is almost identical among survey respondents who are currently in the active workforce and those who are not, suggesting that the impact of education on attitudes toward trade has more to do with information and ideas than with calculations about how trade affects personal income or job security.

Hainmueller, Jens and Michael J. Hiscox. Educated Preferences: Explaining Individual Attitudes toward Immigration in Europe, International Organization, Vol. 61, No. 2 (Spring, 2007): 399-442. In contrast to predictions based upon conventional arguments about labor market competition, we find that people with higher levels of education and occupational skills are more likely to favor immigration regardless of the skill attributes of the immigrants in question. These relationships are almost identical among individuals in and out of the labor force.

RECENT PAPERS:
Hainmueller, Jens and Michael J. Hiscox. Attitudes Towards Highly Skilled and Low Skilled Immigration: Evidence from a Survey Experiment. Version 9/27/08. Past research has emphasized two critical economic concerns that appear to generate anti-immigrant sentiment among native citizens: concerns about labor market competition and concerns about the fiscal burden on public services. We provide direct tests of both models of attitude formation using an original survey experiment embedded in a nationwide U.S. survey. 

Brian Burgoon and Michael J. Hiscox. The Gender Divide over International Trade: Why Do Men and Women Have Different Views about Openness to the World Economy? Version 9/13/08. We examine survey data on attitudes toward showing that women are substantially less likely than men to support increasing trade with foreign nations, even when controlling for occupational and employment-related differences. We find evidence suggesting that differences among men and women in exposure to economic ideas and information may be generating the gender gap in attitudes toward trade.

Brian Burgoon and Michael J. Hiscox. The Strange Politics of Compensation: Individual Attitudes on Trade Adjustment Assistance in the United States Version 12/11/08. Argues that imperfect substitutability between trade adjustment assistance and trade protection, combined with the political linkage between such assistance and liberalization, encourages strategic position-taking among voters as well as policymakers.