Do People Think like Stolper-Samuelson?  Part II 

 Last week, we introduced the question of whether the Stolper-Samuelson theorem, i.e., that more educated people favour trade because it will increase their factor returns, accurately reflects the way people think.  We also introduced our recent paper on this subject,  “Learning to Love Globalization: Education and Individual Attitudes Toward International Trade“ , in which we examine the alternative theory that more educated respondents tend to be more exposed to economic ideas about the overall efficiency gains for the national economy associated with greater trade openness, and tend to be less prone to nationalist and anti-foreigner sentiments often linked with protectionism.  

 Which of the very different interpretations of the education-pro trade link is more correct? We re-examine the available survey data on individual attitudes toward trade, conducting a simple test of the effects of education on support for trade that distinguishes clearly between the Stolper-Samuelson interpretation of this relationship and alternative ideational and cultural accounts. We find that the impact of education on attitudes toward trade is almost identical among respondents currently in the active labor force and among those who are not (even those who are retired). That the effects of education on trade policy preferences are not mediated by whether individuals are actually being paid for the employment of their skills strongly suggests that it is not primarily a product of distributional concerns.  


 The analysis also reveals clear non-linearities in the relationship between education and trade preferences: while individuals who have been exposed to college or university education are far more likely to favor trade openness than those who have not, other types of educational attainment have no significant effects on attitudes and some even reduce the likelihood that individuals support trade even though they clearly contribute to skill acquisition. These findings indicate that the particular ideational and/or cultural effects associated with college education, and not the gradual accumulation of skills, are critical in shaping individual attitudes toward trade. 

 We conclude that the impact of education on how voters’ think about trade and globalization has more to do with exposure to economic ideas, and information about the aggregate and varied effects of these economic phenomena, than it does with individual calculations about how trade affects personal income or job security. This is not to say that the latter types of calculations are not important in shaping individuals’ views of trade – just that they are not being manifest in the simple association between education and support for trade openness. As we discuss in the concluding section, we think it is likely that concerns about the effects of trade on personal income and job security might actually hinge on the particular impact of trade openness in specific industries. One of the key implications of our findings is that future empirical tests of the determinants of individual trade preferences need to be substantially refined to identify the impact of distributional concerns on attitudes towards trade and globalization and distinguish these from the impact of ideational and cultural factors.