James Lake on trade, technology and middle-tier jobs in The Catalyst

In the Fall 2018 issue of The Catalyst, the flagship quarterly publication of the George W. Bush Institute, Associate Professor James Lake writes about how trade and technology rather than trade is largely responsible for the disappearance of middle-tier jobs in the US.In his essay, James Lake points out that “… places with the highest vulnerability to automation and computerization were the places that experienced the greatest degree of job polarization. Meanwhile, places vulnerable to imports have little relative decline in middle-skilled jobs”. He also points out that it is actually smaller locations like Altoona, Pennsylvania and Lincoln, Nebraska that are the successful exceptions to this rule like San Francisco, Austin and Pittsburgh.

Read his entire essay here and see the full Fall 2018 issue of The Catalyst, titled Opportunity Road here.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *