Using US Census data for 1990 and 2000, we estimate effects of the NAFTA agreement on the US wages. We look for any indication of effects of the agreement on (i) local labor markets dependent on industries vulnerable to import competition from Mexico, and (ii) workers employed in industries competing with Mexican imports. We
find evidence of both a strong local labor-market effect, and evidence for a strong industry effect, dramatically lowering wage growth for blue-collar workers in the most affected industries. These distributional effects are much larger than aggregate welfare effects estimated by other authors. In addition, we find strong evidence of anticipatory adjustment in places whose protection was expected to fall but had not yet fallen;
this adjustment appears to have conferred an anticipatory rent to workers in those locations.