What determines public support for trade liberalization? Scholars of international political economy have generally focused on the effects of openness on employment via 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 on trade policy. In this paper, using under-explored survey data combining trade opinion with measures of employer productivity (from the 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 and sectoral and occupational characteristics. Moreover, we find evidence that the 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—such as permanent employees and managers—hold the most pro-trade preferences. These findings suggest that economic interests affect individual policy preferences in more nuanced ways than previously recognized.

什么决定了公众对贸易自由化的支持？国际政治经济学学者普遍关注开放性通过个人技能水平、部门或职业对就业的影响。贸易经济学的最新发展表明，个体公民的就业公司的特征也可能影响他们对贸易政策的态度。在本文中，我们使用未充分探索的调查数据，将贸易意见与雇主生产力的衡量标准相结合（来自 2008 年日本综合社会调查），我们提供的证据表明，生产力更高、全球化程度更高的公司的员工比日本的员工更支持贸易开放。即使考虑到技能水平、部门和职业特征，生产率较低、以国内为导向的公司也是如此。而且，我们发现证据表明，文献中描述的这些特征的影响受到全球化企业就业的制约。最后，我们发现全球化企业就业的影响取决于员工在公司内的相对地位。那些更有可能直接从公司成功中受益的人——例如长期雇员和经理——持有最有利于贸易的偏好。这些发现表明，经济利益对个人政策偏好的影响比以前认识到的更为微妙。那些更有可能直接从公司成功中受益的人——例如长期雇员和经理——持有最有利于贸易的偏好。这些发现表明，经济利益对个人政策偏好的影响比以前认识到的更为微妙。那些更有可能直接从公司成功中受益的人——例如长期雇员和经理——持有最有利于贸易的偏好。这些发现表明，经济利益对个人政策偏好的影响比以前认识到的更为微妙。