IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/rdevec/v22y2018i3p1195-1216.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

A generalized Okun's Law: Uncovering the myth of China's labor market resilience

Author

Listed:
  • Xiaoguang Liu
  • Raphael Lam
  • Alfred Schipke
  • Guangjun Shen

Abstract

A stable labor market is a policy priority for most countries, especially after the burst of the global financial crisis. Unlike most countries, the labor market in China appears to be holding up well, despite sharp slowdown in economic growth. This paper argues that there are underlying fundamental mechanisms that help explain the resilience of China's labor market. The key to understanding labor market dynamics in China is that rural‐to‐urban migrant flows are more sensitive to growth than urban workers in the process of fast urbanization, which serves as a main shock absorber to buffer employment against adverse shocks. Therefore, we propose a generalized Okun's Law (GOL) that incorporates migrant flows with unemployment rates to capture the relation between labor market dynamics and economic cycles. The original Okun's Law can be regarded as a special case of the GOL for developed countries that have already completed urbanization. Conducting empirical analysis with both China's national‐ and city‐level data and cross‐country panel data, we find strong evidence supporting the GOL theory. Findings in the paper have implications for a deeper understanding of the wisdom of Okun's Law and its application in labor market policies.

Suggested Citation

  • Xiaoguang Liu & Raphael Lam & Alfred Schipke & Guangjun Shen, 2018. "A generalized Okun's Law: Uncovering the myth of China's labor market resilience," Review of Development Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 22(3), pages 1195-1216, August.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:rdevec:v:22:y:2018:i:3:p:1195-1216
    DOI: 10.1111/rode.12379
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/rode.12379
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/rode.12379?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. Porras-Arena, M. Sylvina & Martín-Román, Ángel L., 2023. "The heterogeneity of Okun's law: A metaregression analysis," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 128(C).
    2. Oliva, Leobaldo Enrique Molero & Eduardo, Salcedo Muñoz Virgilio & Vásquez, John Alexander Campuzano & Copo, Holger Fabrizzio Bejarano, 2019. "Análisis econométrico del comportamiento del desempleo en el Ecuador (segundo trimestre 2007 a cuarto trimestre 2017)," Revista Tendencias, Universidad de Narino, vol. 20(2), pages 22-48, July.
    3. Peter Gladoic HAKANSSON & Predrag BEJAKOVIC, 2020. "Labour market resilience, bottlenecks and spatial mobility in Croatia," Eastern Journal of European Studies, Centre for European Studies, Alexandru Ioan Cuza University, vol. 11, pages 5-25, December.

    More about this item

    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:rdevec:v:22:y:2018:i:3:p:1195-1216. 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: http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/journal.asp?ref=1363-6669 .

    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.