US Rural Poverty and International Trade

Abstract

There appears to be limited research on the effects of recent international trade treaties on US poverty rates. Previous literature has discussed reasons why rural poverty and urban poverty have somewhat different sets of causes. Using 1985-2015 annual data, rural poverty and urban poverty rates are regressed on the unemployment rate and dummy variables reflecting the time periods for NAFTA and the Chinese entry into the WTO. In particular, the two dummies are statistically insignificant for both poverty rates.