Prevalence of SOEs and intergenerational income persistence: Evidence from China

Haichao Fan, Zheng Fang, Bihong Huang and Mohan Zhou

The World Economy, 2022, vol. 45, issue 1, 276-291

Abstract: This paper evaluates the impact of state‐owned enterprises (SOEs) on intergenerational income persistence in China. Using population census, we first estimate the intergenerational income elasticities (IGEs) across Chinese prefecture‐level cities. We then find that the prevalence of SOEs in a city is negatively associated with its IGE. The estimation using the geographic variation in SOEs created by the ‘156 Projects’ as an instrumental variable shows the suggestive evidence that the relationship between the prevalence of SOEs and intergenerational income persistence might be causal. Further analysis reveals that the prevalence of SOEs may hamper intergenerational mobility through (1) stifling competition from the private sector and (2) facilitating occupational inheritance within SOEs. Our research implies that reforming SOEs shall promote social mobility.

Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://doi.org/10.1111/twec.13100

Related works:
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:bla:worlde:v:45:y:2022:i:1:p:276-291

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.blackwell ... bs.asp?ref=0378-5920

Access Statistics for this article

The World Economy is currently edited by David Greenaway

More articles in The World Economy from Wiley Blackwell
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Wiley Content Delivery ().