Some policy makers are reluctant to implement trade reform due to fear of excessive adjustment costs. Policy makers fears may be based in part on political dynamics of reform, but may also be based in part on the fact that there is much less written and known on the subject of the nature, magnitude, and duration of adjustment costs. In this paper we attempt to fill the void in the literature by surveying the evidence on the adjustment costs of trade liberalization, and placing those estimates of adjustment costs in perspective relative to the gains from trade liberalization.