More Jobs or Widening Inequality? Public Data Governance and Low-Skilled Labor in the People’s Republic of China

Desheng Wu, Yu Xie and Yuan Pei
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Desheng Wu: Sichuan University
Yu Xie: Xi’an Jiaotong University
Yuan Pei: Asian Development Bank

No 859, ADB Economics Working Paper Series from Asian Development Bank

Abstract: The employment consequences of public data governance efforts remain largely unexamined despite the rapid global expansion of open government data (OGD) initiatives. We address this gap by looking at the staggered rollout of OGD platforms across 218 cities in the People’s Republic of China, applying a difference-in-differences design to business registration records covering 70 million enterprises, listed company employment data for the period 2009–2022, and labor dispute records. Public data access raises aggregate employment through firm dynamics, with both firm entry and firm exit accelerating and net employment expanding. These gains concentrate among ordinary workers, particularly less educated employees and those in production roles, rather than among managers.

Keywords: open government data; public data governance; employment; wage inequality; firm dynamics; low-skilled labor; People’s Republic of China (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J23 L86 O33 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 859
Date: 2026-08-27
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ris:adbewp:023551

DOI: 10.22617/WPS260371-2

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