Replication Data for: Where You Work Is Where You Stand: A Firm-Based Framework for Understanding Trade Opinion

What determines public support for trade liberalization? IPE scholars have generally focused on the effects of openness on employment based on individuals’ skill-level, sector, or occupation. Recent developments in trade economics suggest that the characteristics of individual citizens’ employing firms may also shape their attitudes towards trade policy. In this paper, using under-explored survey data combining trade opinion with measures of employer productivity(2008 Japanese General Social Survey), we present evidence that employees of more-productive/more-globalized firms are much more supportive of trade openness than employees of less-productive/domestically-oriented firms, even when accounting for skill-level, sectoral, and occupational characteristics. Moreover, we find evidence that effects of these characteristics described in the literature are conditioned by globalized firm employment. Last, we find that the effect of globalized firm employment is conditioned by employees’ relative position within their firms. Those who are more likely to benefit directly from firm success–e.g., permanent employees and managers –hold the most pro-trade preferences. These findings suggest that economic interests may affect individual policy preferences in more nuanced ways than previously recognized.