Michael J. Hiscox

Papers appearing here are works in progress and will be revised frequently prior to publication; any comments you might have would be greatly appreciated.

Hiscox, Michael J. and Nicholas Smyth. Is there Consumer Demand for Improved Labor Standards? Evidence from Field Experiments in Social Product Labeling Version: 3/21/08. A majority of surveyed consumers say they would be willing to pay extra for products made under good working conditions rather than in sweatshops, but would they really do so? We report results from experiments conducted in a major retail store in New York City. Sales rose by 12-26% for items labeled as being made under good labor standards. Moreover, demand for the labeled products actually rose when prices were increased. Raising prices of labeled goods by 10% actually increased their sales by an additional 21-31%.

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. 

Hainmueller, Jens and Michael J. Hiscox. Being Specific: Measuring Asset Specificity for Political Economy Version 8/1/08. We describe an ideal measure of specificity, and lay out a set of criteria by which alternative measures of specificity should be judged. We then survey and compare some of the most common measures of skill specificity applied in previous empirical research. We find that many measures represent radical departures from the theoretical concept and are severely limited in terms of the countries for which data are available. 

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. 

Hiscox. Michael J. and Scott Kastner. A General Measure of Trade Policy Orientations: Gravity-Model-Based Estimates for 76 Nations, 1960 to 2000 Version 9/11/08. We derive a general, cross-national measure of trade policy orientations by using fixed country-year effects in a gravity model estimated with data on bilateral trade flows across 76 nations between 1960 and 2000. (Downloadable data)

Hiscox, Michael J. Balancing Act: The Political Economy of U.S. Trade Sanctions. Version 12/108. Develops a model of sanctions policy making that allows for both group lobbying and international bargaining, and examines evidence on approximately 500 sanctions bills proposed in Congress between 1971 and 2000, and on some 40 trade sanctions imposed by the president during the same period. 

Hiscox, Michael J., Claire Schwartz, and Michael Toffel. Evaluating the Impact of SA8000 Certification. Version 5/20/08. Reviews existing evaluations of private codes governing workplace conditions and discusses best practices for evaluation studies in other domains. We argue for incorporating these practices in evaluations of codes like SA8000 to make clear causal inferences about impact, distinguishing selection effects from treatment effects. (This paper will be published in in SA8000 The First Decade: Implementation, Influence, and Impact, Deborah Leipziger (ed.). London: Greenleaf, 2009, forthcoming.)

Hiscox, Michael J. Fair Trade and Globalization. Version: 2/27/07 Provides an overview of the Fair Trade movement and argues that the major critcisms leveled against Fair Trade are unwarranted. I suggest that the primary question is whether there is enough demand among ethically-minded consumers to allow for the development of the market beyond its current foothold. (Originally written as a briefing memorandum for a Princeton conference on Europe and the management of globalization, this has since been translated and published in Ensayos de economia cafetera).