How Do Households Adjust to Trade Liberalization? Evidence from China's WTO Accession

Mi Dai (daimi002@bnu.edu.cn), Wei Huang (huangwei@pku.edu.cn) and Yifan Zhang
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Mi Dai: Beijing Normal University

No 11428, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: We investigate the impacts of trade liberalization on household behaviors and outcomes in urban China, exploiting regional variation in the exposure to tariff cuts resulting from WTO entry. Regions that initially specialized in industries facing larger tariff cuts experienced relative declines in wages. Households responded to this income shock in several ways. First, household members worked more, especially in the non-tradable sector. Second, more young adults co-resided with their parents, and thus household size increased. Third, households saved less. These behaviors significantly buffered the negative wage shock induced by trade liberalization.

Keywords: trade liberalization; household adjustments; WTO (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: F14 F16 J20 R23 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 60 pages
Date: 2018-03
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cna, nep-int, nep-lma, nep-sea and nep-tra
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (8)

Published - published as 'How do households adjust to tariff liberalization? Evidence from China's WTO accession' in: Journal of Development Economics, 2021, 150, 102628

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