High-skilled services and development in China

Lei Fang and Berthold Herrendorf

Journal of Development Economics, 2021, vol. 151, issue C

Abstract: We document that the employment share of high-skill-intensive services is much lower in China than in countries with similar GDP per capita. We build a model of structural change with goods and low- and high-skill-intensive services to account for this observation. We find that large distortions limit the size of high-skill-intensive services in China. If they were removed, both high-skill-intensive services and GDP per capita would increase considerably. We document a strong presence of state-owned enterprises in high-skill-intensive services and suggest that this leads to important distortions.

Keywords: China; High-skill-intensive services; State-owned enterprises; Structural change (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O41 O47 O51 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

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Related works:
Working Paper: High-Skilled Services and Development in China (2021)
Working Paper: High-Skilled Services and Development in China (2019)
Working Paper: High-Skilled Services and Development in China (2019)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:deveco:v:151:y:2021:i:c:s030438782100050x

DOI: 10.1016/j.jdeveco.2021.102671

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