Patrick Conway
Economics Department
University of North Carolina
Chapel Hill, NC 27599-3305

Research on the Impact of Import Competition

in the Textiles Industry in the US

My work, often in collaboration with UNC colleagues Alfred Field of the Economics Department and Robert Connolly of the Kenan-Flagler Business School, examines the role of international trade in the decline of the US textiles industry. Among the papers completed so far are:

• When do Firms Downsize?

  This paper examines data on employment loss and plant closure from 100 counties in North Carolina over the period 1980 through 2000. The propensity for downsizing or closure is explained in terms of country-wide characteristics: the skill level of workers, the availability of infrastructure, the degree of urbanization, and others.

• The Impact of Negotiated Restraints on US Trade in Textiles

Through a combination of US Customs data on negotiated restraints by trading partner and international trade data on volume and value of trade in textiles by trading-partner country, this paper explores the effectiveness of the US quota system in restraining imports in two categories of textiles imports. One contribution is the work with data disaggregated to the level of individual quota category. A second is the simultaneous consideration of US exports of these same products.

• Performance and Perception: Results from a Survey of US Textiles Manufacturers

This paper reports the results of a survey administered to a sample of textiles manufacturers in the US in 2004. The focus of the survey is the attitudes of firm managers with respect to the expiration of quotas under the Agreement on Textiles and Clothing (ATC) at the end of 2004. These attitudes are correlated with characteristics of the firms and with their performance over the preceding seven years. Also reported: the firm managers' suggestions for commercial-policy innovations once the ATC expires. (With Robert Connolly)

• The North Carolina Textiles Project: An Initial Report

This paper reports the conclusions we drew on the evolution and future of the textiles industry in the US from a round of interviews with textile firm owners in the summer of 2003. (with Robert Connolly, Alfred Field and Douglas Longman)

• Import Price Pressure on Firm Productivity and Employment: The Case of US Textiles

This paper is the report of research using the Longitudinal Research Database of the US Bureau of the Census to determine the effect of import competition on textile plant performance. It uses a novel decomposition of the data to distinguish import-competition effects from technological changes and evolution of industrial organization.

• Downsizing, Layoffs and Plant Closure: The Impacts of Import Price Pressure and Technological Progress on US Textiles Producers

This paper also uses the Longitudinal Research Database, but incorporates both static and dynamic equilibrium analysis to identify the relative contributions of technological progress and removal of import quotas in the movement of domestic prices of textiles, entry and exit of plants and the plant's investment decision.

• Charting Employment Loss in North Carolina Textiles

Using monthly data from the North Carolina Employment Security Commission, I use event-study techniques to search for the impact of increased import competition on job loss in textiles.

I also collaborated with the Center for the Study of the American South at UNC to convene a conference on 8-9 April 2004 entitled

• Community Adjustment to Textile Plant Closure and Downsizing.

Follow the link to the papers and proceedings of that conference.

Last edited: 14 March 2006