Economic Transition and Private-Sector Labor Demand: Evidence from Urban China

Lakshmi Iyer, Xin Meng (), Nancy Qian and Xiaoxue Zhao

No 19733, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

Abstract: This paper studies the policy determinants of economic transition and estimates the demand for labor in the infant private sector in urban China. We show that a reform that untied access to housing in urban areas from working for the state sector accounts for more than a quarter of the overall increase in labor supply to the private sector during 1986-2005. Using the reform to instrument for private-sector labor supply, we find that private-sector labor demand is very elastic. We provide suggestive evidence that the reform equalized wages across sectors and reduced private-sector rents.

JEL-codes: J2 O18 P2 P3 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2013-12
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cna, nep-lab, nep-lma, nep-tra and nep-ure
Note: DEV LS
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.nber.org/papers/w19733.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Working Paper: Economic Transition and Private-Sector Labor Demand: Evidence from Urban China (2016)
Working Paper: Economic Transition and Private-Sector Labor Demand: Evidence from Urban China (2015)
Working Paper: Economic Transition and Private-Sector Labor Demand: Evidence from Urban China (2014)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nbr:nberwo:19733

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
http://www.nber.org/papers/w19733

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc National Bureau of Economic Research, 1050 Massachusetts Avenue Cambridge, MA 02138, U.S.A.. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ().