About the lecture

Drawing on joint work with David Autor, Anne Beck and Gordon Hanson, Dorn examines the economic and political consequences of the trade war between the United States, China and other US trading partners, measured at fine geographic detail across local labour markets.

The economic and political findings pull in opposite directions. Import tariffs neither raised nor lowered employment in the newly protected sectors; retaliatory tariffs did clear damage, concentrated in agriculture, only partly offset by compensatory subsidies. Politically, however, the trade war appears to have worked for the governing party — with support rising in the regions more exposed to it.

That gap between economic outcome and electoral reward is the puzzle the lecture takes up, and it travels well beyond the American case. It goes to the heart of how European policymakers should think about the politics of industrial policy, trade protection and the coming wave of AI-driven labour market disruption.

About the speaker

David Dorn is UBS Foundation Professor of Globalization and Labor Markets at the University of Zurich and a CEPR research fellow. His work with Autor and Hanson on the "China shock" is among the most widely cited research on how trade exposure reshapes local labour markets and political behaviour.

Practical information

The lecture forms part of a two-day workshop (10–11 September 2026) funded by the Amsterdam Centre for European Studies and organised by Léonard Bocquet, Tommaso Giommoni and Asli Unan. The workshop brings together economists and political scientists working on how globalisation, automation and AI reshape labour markets, political attitudes and policy in Europe.