SMU SOE Seminar (August 11, 2023): Liberalization to Inequality: How China’s State-Owned Enterprise Reform Restructures the Urban Labor Market

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ABSTRACT Large scale privatization and massive layoff can lead to a sudden increase in income inequality. We analyze the impact of the State-Owned Enterprise (SOE) reform on labor market outcomes in urban China from 1992 to 2004, exploiting cross-prefecture variation in reform exposure stemming from initial differences in employment share in the urban collective enterprises (UCEs) and SOEs. Both difference-in-differences and event-study design show that workers in prefectures more exposed to the reform are more negatively impacted in employment and income, comparing to those less exposed areas. Further heterogeneous analysis confirms that younger cohorts and individuals with lower educational attainment experienced greater loss. A back-of-the-envelope analysis estimates indicate that the reform contributed to more than 40% increase in income inequality. Click here to view the CV.
		PRESENTER Sharon Xuejing Zuo Fudan University
		RESEARCH FIELDS Labor Economics Behavioral and Experimental Economics Chinese Economy
		DATE: 11 August 2023 (Friday)
		TIME: 4pm - 5.30pm
		VENUE: Meeting Room 5.1, Level 5 School of Economics Singapore Management University 90 Stamford Road Singapore 178903