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Costly Labor Adjustment: General Equilibrium Effects of China's Employment Regulations

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  • Russell Cooper
  • Guan Gong
  • Ping Yan

Abstract

This paper studies the employment, productivity and welfare implications of new Chinese labor regulations intended to protect workers' employment conditions. We estimate a general equilibrium model of costly labor adjustment from data prior to the policy. Using the estimated parameters, we study the effects of the interventions. We find that increases in severance payments lead to a sizable increase in firm size, lower aggregate employment, a significant reduction in labor reallocation, an increase in the exit rate and a welfare loss. A policy of credit market liberalization will reduce firm size, increase aggregate employment, increase labor reallocation, wages and welfare. If in place at the time, these frictions would have reduced China's annual growth rate by 1.1 percentage points over the 1998-2007 period.

Suggested Citation

  • Russell Cooper & Guan Gong & Ping Yan, 2013. "Costly Labor Adjustment: General Equilibrium Effects of China's Employment Regulations," NBER Working Papers 19324, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:19324
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    Cited by:

    1. You, Jing & Wang, Shaoyang, 2018. "Unemployment duration and job-match quality in urban China: The dynamic impact of 2008 Labor Contract Law," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 71(C), pages 220-233.
    2. Sandra PONCET & Florian MAYNERIS & Tao ZHANG, 2014. "The cleansing effect of minimum wages - Minimum wages, firm dynamics and aggregate productivity in China," Working Papers P113, FERDI.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • E24 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Employment; Unemployment; Wages; Intergenerational Income Distribution; Aggregate Human Capital; Aggregate Labor Productivity
    • J08 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - General - - - Labor Economics Policies
    • J2 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor

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