IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/etrans/v10y2002i3p637-658.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The effect of reforms on employment flexibility in Chinese SOEs, 1980–94

Author

Listed:
  • Frank Bodmer

Abstract

This paper tries to document the increased flexibility in employment relations in Chinese SOEs until 1994, as well as the effects this had on productivity and on the allocation of workers. A number of measures were introduced to enhance such flexibility, such as autonomy in the decision to hire and fire workers, and a new contract status which could at least in theory be terminated. This was aimed at improving the motivation as well as the allocation of workers across firms. Both should have improved the productivity of SOEs. The evidence found, however, indicates that these measures had few effects. This conclusion is based first on turnover data where hardly any change is found. Estimates of productivity and allocative efficiency gains lead to the same conclusion. This confirms the view that the Chinese state sector reforms regarding employment decisions remained very limited in scope until 1994. JEL classification: P23, P31, J63.

Suggested Citation

  • Frank Bodmer, 2002. "The effect of reforms on employment flexibility in Chinese SOEs, 1980–94," The Economics of Transition, The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, vol. 10(3), pages 637-658, November.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:etrans:v:10:y:2002:i:3:p:637-658
    DOI: 10.1111/1468-0351.t01-1-00128
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/1468-0351.t01-1-00128
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/1468-0351.t01-1-00128?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Frank Bodmer, 2003. "On the Use of Incentive Pay in Chinese State‐owned Enterprises: The Role of Hierarchy," LABOUR, CEIS, vol. 17(2), pages 299-314, June.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • P23 - Political Economy and Comparative Economic Systems - - Socialist and Transition Economies - - - Factor and Product Markets; Industry Studies; Population
    • P31 - Political Economy and Comparative Economic Systems - - Socialist Institutions and Their Transitions - - - Socialist Enterprises and Their Transitions
    • J63 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers - - - Turnover; Vacancies; Layoffs

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bla:etrans:v:10:y:2002:i:3:p:637-658. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/ebrdduk.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.