Labour market reform and firm-level employment adjustment: Evidence from the hukou reform in China

Wang, Feicheng; Milner, Chris; Scheffel, Juliane

doi:10.1016/j.jdeveco.2020.102584

Cited by 55 publications

(47 citation statements)

References 68 publications

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“…This paper contributes to the growing literature related to the effects of hukou status on the consumption and savings behaviour of urban migrants (Chen, 2018;Chen, et al, 2015;Wang, et al, 2021). 2 Chen, et al (2015) found that urban immigrants without hukou consumed between 16% and 20% less than their non-immigrant urban counterparts.…”

Section: R1 J6mentioning

confidence: 80%

Precautionary savings and rural‐to‐urban migration: Evidence from Chinese hukou status

Chen

DeLoach

Islam

2023

Econ of Transit and Inst Chang

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Rural‐to‐urban migrants account for more than one‐third of the total population in China. However, because of China's hukou system, urban migrants can have limited access to different public services in urban areas. Consequently, this can affect their consumption and savings behaviour. However, little is known about how the hukou system changes migrants' allocation of savings across different savings instruments. In this study, we utilize the 2013 round of the Urban and Rural Residents Income Distribution and Living Conditions Survey of China to see if migrants' hukou status affects allocation between short‐term and long‐term assets. Propensity score matching is used to match migrants with migrants who have obtained urban hukou. When comparing the urban migrants having rural hukou with hukou holders who converted their hukou from rural to urban, we find that the migrants hold significantly higher proportions of savings in cash and other short‐term assets. Those who have obtained urban hukou, appear to hold a greater share of their portfolio in long‐term, higher returning assets. The differences in portfolio allocations appear to be larger for migrants with lower household income. We argue that these results are consistent with savings behaviour driven by a precautionary motive.

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Section: R1 J6mentioning

confidence: 80%

Precautionary savings and rural‐to‐urban migration: Evidence from Chinese hukou status

Chen

DeLoach

Islam

2023

Econ of Transit and Inst Chang

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“…The need for export expansion following China’s WTO accession creates more local employment opportunities, thus attracting less-developed rural populations to cities, especially to cities with higher trade openness [ 33 ]. However, rural migrants face serious inequalities of opportunity, such as difficulties in obtaining a local household registration (hukou), acquiring a stable residence, and accessing lower-cost healthcare coverage [ 34 ]. In particular, during the sample period of this paper, migrant workers might prefer to pay for medical insurance and seek medical treatment in their original hukou location because the system of medical insurance processing and settlement in different places has not been built, and the high medical expenses might hinder migrant workers’ access to better medical services in cities.…”

Section: Background and Theoretical Hypothesesmentioning

confidence: 99%

China’s Accession to the WTO as a Shock to Residents’ Health—A Difference-in-Difference Approach

Yi-ping

Zhang

et al. 2022

IJERPH

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The impact of regional trade shocks on population health has been a topic of interest in health economics in recent years. Unfortunately, there are few studies directly discussing the impact of regional trade shocks caused by China’s WTO accession on the health of Chinese residents, which is essential to explore the connection between a country´s opening to international trade and the health of its residents. Taking China’s accession to the WTO as a quasi-natural experiment, based on the micro individual samples of the China Health and Nutrition Survey (CHNS) from 1993 to 2011, this paper, for the first time, studies the impact of regional tariff uncertainty caused by China’s accession to the WTO on the health of Chinese residents and its mechanisms by adopting the Difference-in-Difference (DID) model. The study finds that compared with the areas initially facing low tariff uncertainty, the areas with high initial tariff uncertainty have a greater negative impact on the health of residents after China acceded to WTO, which means that the trade shock caused damage to the health of residents. After a series of tests on the effectiveness and robustness of DID, this conclusion is still valid. The impact of the trade shock on residents’ health varies with the type of residence, gender, and geographical location, and there is a nonlinear relationship. Further mechanism tests show that the trade shock has worsened the health status of residents through rural migration channels, working hours channels, and pollution emission channels. This study provides micro evidence for objectively evaluating the health effects of trade shock and has important implication for considering the health loss of Chinese residents in the process of trade liberalization.

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“…Aghion et al (2008) extend this result by showing how industries in Indian States with pro‐employer labour market conditions benefited more from the licencing reforms in terms of output and employment than industries in pro‐worker Indian States. Wang et al (2021) find that Chinese firms exposed to higher labour market flexibility had higher employment adjustments and adjusted more to trade liberalisation. Based on the existing literature on the relationship between labour market restrictions and labour mobility, we expect sectors and regions with more flexible labour markets to be characterised by higher labour mobility and in turn, experience higher FDI spillovers.…”

Section: Literature Review and Research Questionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Foreign firm characteristics, labour market restrictions and FDI spillovers: Evidence from Moldova

Tan¹,

Tusha

2022

World Economy

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This paper investigates how productivity spillovers from foreign to domestic firms are affected by foreign firm characteristics and labour market conditions in Moldova. We use firm-level administrative panel data and annual survey region-sector indicators of labour market conditions in 2005-2014. Baseline regressions show that domestic firms benefit from backward FDI spillovers, while we find no evidence of horizontal or forward spillovers. Spillover effects are heterogeneous and depend on the ownership structure and age of foreign firms. Domestic firms in upstream sectors benefit from both wholly foreign-owned companies (WFOC) and joint ventures (JV). However, JVs need less time in the market for positive spillovers to materialise, while WFOCs only lead to larger spillover effects when they are older. In regions and sectors where firms experience fewer labour market restrictions, backward FDI spillovers are larger. Interacting foreign firm characteristics with labour market restrictions, we find that spillovers through the labour market channel materialise only for older FDI, regardless of ownership type. The results are in line with our expectation that WFOCs need more time than JVs to develop linkages with local suppliers and lead to spillovers through this channel. Moreover, in developing countries labour market restrictions reduce labour mobil-

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Labour market reform and firm-level employment adjustment: Evidence from the hukou reform in China

Cited by 55 publications

References 68 publications

Precautionary savings and rural‐to‐urban migration: Evidence from Chinese hukou status

Precautionary savings and rural‐to‐urban migration: Evidence from Chinese hukou status

China’s Accession to the WTO as a Shock to Residents’ Health—A Difference-in-Difference Approach

Foreign firm characteristics, labour market restrictions and FDI spillovers: Evidence from Moldova

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