IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ces/ceswps/_10512.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Skill-Biased Imports, Skill Acquisition, and Migration

Author

Listed:
  • Jingting Fan
  • Lei Li

Abstract

Imported capital goods, which embody skill-complementary technologies, can increase the supply of skills in developing countries. Focusing on China and using a shift-share design, we show that city-level capital goods import growth increases the local skill share and that both skill acquisition and migration play a role. We develop and quantify a spatial equilibrium model with these two mechanisms to examine the aggregate effects of capital goods imports, accounting for trade and migration linkages between cities. Counterfactual experiments suggest that the growth in capital goods imports in China between 2000 and 2010 led to a 3.7-8.9 million increase in the stock of college graduates, representing 5.7-13% of the total increase over this period. However, this growth disproportionately favored coastal regions, exacerbating existing spatial disparities.

Suggested Citation

  • Jingting Fan & Lei Li, 2023. "Skill-Biased Imports, Skill Acquisition, and Migration," CESifo Working Paper Series 10512, CESifo.
    • Handle: RePEc:ces:ceswps:_10512
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.cesifo.org/DocDL/cesifo1_wp10512.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Jingting Fan, 2019. "Internal Geography, Labor Mobility, and the Distributional Impacts of Trade," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 11(3), pages 252-288, July.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

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


    Cited by:

    1. Chen, Wen & Xue, Wei, 2024. "The impact of capital goods trade liberalization on regional labor market in China," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 86(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Liu, Chen & Ma, Xiao, 2018. "China's Export Surge and the New Margins of Trade," MPRA Paper 103970, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised Oct 2020.
    2. Farrokhi, Farid & Jinkins, David, 2019. "Wage inequality and the location of cities," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 111(C), pages 76-92.
    3. repec:zbw:bofitp:2020_023 is not listed on IDEAS
    4. Dong, Xiaoqi & Liang, Yinhe & Zhang, Jiawei, 2023. "Fertility responses to the relaxation of migration restrictions: Evidence from the Hukou reform in China," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 81(C).
    5. Yuwan Duan & Erik Dietzenbacher & Bart Los & Ruochen Dai, 2023. "Regional inequality in China during its rise as a giant exporter: A value chain analysis," Journal of Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 63(1), pages 148-172, January.
    6. Lai, Tat-Kei & Wang, Luhang, 2024. "Spatial disparity of skill premium in China: The role of financial intermediation development," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 85(C).
    7. Ponce, Pablo & Yunga, Fernando & Larrea-Silva, Jhohana & Aguirre, Nikolay, 2023. "Spatial determinants of income inequality at the global level: The role of natural resources," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 84(C).
    8. Wang, Yixuan, 2024. "Urban Redevelopment and Gentrification: Evidence from the Atlanta BeltLine," 2024 Annual Meeting, July 28-30, New Orleans, LA 343550, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    9. Du, Yan & Yan, Jie & Cao, Fangzhou & Li, Yifei & Zhou, Mao, 2023. "Higher education expansion and domestic value added in exports: Theory and evidence from China," Journal of Asian Economics, Elsevier, vol. 87(C).
    10. Qingen Gai & Naijia Guo & Bingjing Li & Qinghua Shi & Xiaodong Zhu, 2021. "Migration Costs, Sorting, and the Agricultural Productivity Gap," Working Papers tecipa-693, University of Toronto, Department of Economics.
    11. Hsu, Wen-Tai & Ma, Lin, 2021. "Urbanization policy and economic development: A quantitative analysis of China's differential hukou reforms," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 91(C).
    12. Li, Bingjing & Ma, Lin, 2022. "JUE insight: Migration, transportation infrastructure, and the spatial transmission of COVID-19 in China," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 127(C).
    13. Zhang, Xin & Wang, Yixuan & Hu, Xingyi & Chen, Xi, 2024. "Fetal Pollution Exposure, Cognitive Ability, and Gender-Specific Parental Investment," IZA Discussion Papers 17288, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    14. Chen, Yuanyuan & Yuan, Meng & Zhang, Min, 2023. "Income inequality and educational expenditures on children: Evidence from the China Family Panel Studies," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 78(C).
    15. Xu, Yang & Yang, Xi, 2021. "Access to ports and the welfare gains from domestic transportation infrastructure," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 126(C).
    16. Pan, Xiameng & Sun, Chang, 2024. "Internal migration, remittances and economic development," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 147(C).
    17. Guangsu Zhou & Xiaoyu Bian, 2024. "The impact of intergenerational income mobility on internal migration in China," Economics of Transition and Institutional Change, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 32(1), pages 183-208, January.
    18. Kwon, Ohyun & Fleisher, Belton & McGuire, William & Zhao, Min Qiang, 2020. "Provincial Trade, Financial Friction and Misallocation in China," School of Economics Working Paper Series 2020-1, LeBow College of Business, Drexel University.
    19. Min Fang & Libin Han & Zibin Huang & Ming Lu & Li Zhang, 2022. "Place-based Land Policy and Spatial Misallocation: Theory and Evidence from China," Working Papers 002002, University of Florida, Department of Economics.
    20. Huoqing Cao & Chaoran Chen & Xican Xi & Sharon Xuejing Zuo, 2024. "Family migration and structural transformation," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 57(3), pages 753-776, August.
    21. Lecca, Patrizio & Persyn, Damiaan & Sakkas, Stelios, 2023. "Capital-skill complementarity and regional inequality: A spatial general equilibrium analysis," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 102(C).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    imported capital goods; capital-skill complementarity; skill acquisition; migration;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • F14 - International Economics - - Trade - - - Empirical Studies of Trade
    • F16 - International Economics - - Trade - - - Trade and Labor Market Interactions
    • F66 - International Economics - - Economic Impacts of Globalization - - - Labor
    • J24 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Human Capital; Skills; Occupational Choice; Labor Productivity
    • J61 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers - - - Geographic Labor Mobility; Immigrant Workers

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:ces:ceswps:_10512. 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.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with 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: Klaus Wohlrabe (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/cesifde.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.