【题  目】Competition in the Labor Market: The Wage Effect of Employer Concentration in China

【时  间】2023年6月13日（星期二），15:30-17:00

【地  点】后主楼1722

【主讲人】林树明 副教授（美国Bucknell大学经济系）

【主持人】蔡宏波 副院长、教授（北京师范大学经济与工商管理学院）

摘要: Competition in the labor market theoretically leads to higher wages, yet empirical evidence to substantiate this theory, particularly in developing countries, has been notably sparse. In sharp contrast to developed economies where markets have increasingly veered towards monopsony, China’s labor market has experienced a surge in competitiveness. This was particularly visible when China embarked on its transformation in 1978, transitioning from a socialist command-economy model to a market-oriented one. At that point, competition was practically nonexistent due to the lack of private enterprises. As China’s economic reform gained momentum after 1993, competition in the labor market increased nationwide. Our study delves into the impact of this increased competition in the labor market on workers’ wages using a panel dataset from Chinese industrial firms spanning 1998 to 2013. Employing panel OLS and IV regressions, which control for labor productivity and unobserved heterogeneity, we demonstrate that a decrease in employer concentration—indicative of an increase in labor market competition—is significantly linked to higher wages. The elasticity of employer concentration on wages, as per our preferred estimates, fall within the range of -0.034 and -0.107. Additionally, our findings suggest that state-owned enterprises gained the most from this upswing in competition, followed by non-state firms and foreign-invested companies. Mechanism analyses propose that China’s decreasing employer concentration cultivates higher total factor productivity, insinuating that total factor productivity serves as an important channel linking employer concentration to workers' wages. 

主讲人简介: Carl Lin 林树明，台湾大学经济系学士，美国乔治城大学硕士，美国罗格斯大学经济学博士，曾任教于北京师范大学，目前为美国Bucknell大学经济系副教授(终身)。Bucknell大学为美国著名文理大学，顶级文科院校之一。现任中国留美经济学会(CES)候任会长，兼任联合国大学世界发展经济研究所(UNU-WIDER)顾问，世界银行咨询专家，德国劳动研究所(IZA)研究员，及北京师范大学中国收入分配研究院研究员。研究领域为劳动经济学与发展经济学，研究兴趣为最低工资、收入分配、劳动力市场、国际与城乡移民。出版英文编著“Minimum Wages in China: Evolution, Legislation, and Effects”由国际知名出版集团施普林格·自然(Springer Nature)发行。