2013 international symposium on contemporary labor...

2013 International Symposium on Contemporary Labor Economics

Big Data, Search and Matching in Labor Economics

2013 December 7-8 (Sat-Sun), Xiamen

Wang Yanan Institute for Studies in Economics (WISE)

Xiamen University, China


CONTENTS

目录

Conference Guide ................................................................................. 3

Program ................................................................................................ 6

Abstract ................................................................................................. 12

List of Participants ................................................................................ 25


WISE Labor 2013

“Big Data”, Search and Matching in Labor Economics Conference Guide

1. Reception The Conference Committee has arranged transportations for faculty/professional presenters at the airport upon request; this requires the presenters to provide accurate arrival information to Xiamen. At the arrival, please pay attention to the “LABOR 2013” signboard or your name to get the proper transportation arrangement. If you would like to take a Taxi, please see the information on page 5 and show that information to Taxi driver. For the departure, you can book the taxi from the hotel.

2. Accommodation and Registration For faculty/professional presenters, accommodation is provided by Xiamen City Hotel. For student presenters, accommodation is provided by Xiamen Egret Hotel. The registration time is on Dec 6 from 10:00 to 21:30 and the venue is at the lobby of Xiamen City Hotel, Xiamen. Those who arrive late can get the material from the reception desk at the lobby. There is an onsite registration fee of $180 (1100RMB) for general faculty/professional presenters and 600 RMB for those whose primary affiliation is a domestic Chinese institution. For all student presenters, the registration fees will be waived. The receipt or invoice will be provided.

3. Meals

Dec 06 Supper 18:00-21:0

Xiamen City Hotel / Xiamen Egret Hotel Dec 07 Breakfast 7:00-7:50 Xiamen City Hotel/ Xiamen Egret Hotel Lunch 12:05 Yifu Restaurant Supper 18:50 Dafengyuan Restaurant Dec 08 Breakfast 7:00-8:05 Xiamen City Hotel/ Xiamen Egret Hotel Lunch 12:05 Nanputuo Restaurant

Supper 18:45 Yifu Restaurant Dec 09 Breakfast 8:00 Xiamen City Hotel/ Xiamen Egret Hotel

4. Transportation during the conference

Dec 07 08:00 Leave from Xiamen City Hotel to XMU 20:30 Back to Xiamen City Hotel from Dafengyuan

Dec 08 08:15 Leave from Xiamen City Hotel to XMU 20:30 Back to Xiamen City Hotel from the restaurant Dec 09 08:30 Leave from Xiamen City Hotel

5. Chief Organizers’ contact information in the Conference Committee

Academic affairs: Kailing SHEN 18959285721 Publicity: Jingjing DENG

18959282387

Reception: Aileen YU 18959218827 Jia LIN 18959281776 Transportation Daisy XU 18959281003 Technical Support Zhiqiang RAO 2186275 Treasury: Iris Hong ZHANG 18959287878

http://www.wise.xmu.edu.cn/loadpage.asp?id=50


6. Booking Tickets Ticket Office in XMU: 0592-2183083 (For aviation and bus ticket, please book in advance) Xiamen Airlines Hotline: 0592-2226666 (Free delivery of tickets within the Island ) Consulting Agency at the Xiamen Airport: 0592-6020033/ 6028940 Ticket Office at the Airport: 0592-5738816

Major airlines’ contact telephone numbers：

MF: 2226666 CZ：5117777，6022936-7558 FM: 2210600 MU：5732401 CA：5084383，5084375 SC：5555555，5562377 KA：5117702 CX：00852-27471888 MH：2106088，2106188 PR：2394729，2394730 MI：2053275，2037127 KA：2680140，2680141 SQ：2053275 NH：2052317，5732888

7. A half-day campus and city tour will be specially offered on 9th Dec by the committee which will guide our guests around XMU Campus, Nanputuo Temple and the Ring Road. For those guests who are interested in this trip, please double confirm it during your registration. For those who signed up then, please gather at 8:30am, 9th Dec at Lobby of Xiamen City Hotel; It will last from 8:30am to 12:00pm, simple lunch is included.

8. We will offer a Conference Pass for you. Please present your pass when you enter XMU campus or have lunch and supper at the appointed restaurants.

9. Please turn your cell phone into silence or vibration mode when the conference is in progress.

10. WIFI will be provided at all conference rooms. You can link to ”wise-soe” without any password.


For faculty/professional presenter, please show this to Taxi driver 酒店 Hotel:厦门宾馆 l 酒店地点 Hotel Address：厦门虎园路 16 号路线：成功大道——植物园隧道出口——厦门宾馆 8 号楼

For student presenter, please show this to Taxi driver 酒店 Hotel:厦门白鹭宾馆 l 酒店地点 Hotel Address：厦门虎园路 6 号路线：成功大道——植物园隧道出口——厦门白鹭宾馆

Campus Map

Hotels Map


WISE Labor 2013 “Big Data”, Search and Matching in Labor Economics

December 7-8 (Sat-Sun) 2013 Program

Day 1 Day 2 8:30-8:40 10 minutes Opening Remarks 8:40-10:10 1.5 hours Keynote Keynote 10:10-10:35 25 minutes Group Photo & Coffee Coffee 10:35-12:05 1.5 hours Session: 1A, 1A2, 1A3 Session: 2A, 2A2, 2A3

12:05-13:35 1.5 hours Lunch Lunch 13:35-15:05 1.5 hours Keynote Keynote 15:05-15:30 25 minutes Coffee Coffee 15:30-17:00 1.5 hours Session: 1B, 1B2, 1B3 Round Table 17:10-18:40 1.5 hours Session: 1C, 1C2, 1C3 Session: 2B (data), 2B2

Note: (1) Each paper/talk is given a unique id number for easy of reference. It is included here in the square bracket before the title of paper. (2) The discussants are listed in the last line of each session. The sequence shows the correspondence.

Day 1, Saturday, 7 December 2013

8:30-8:40 Welcome and Opening Remarks (N303)

Chair: Kailing Shen, WISE, Xiamen University

Welcoming speech by Yongmiao Hong, Cornell University and Xiamen University

8:40-10:10 Keynote Session 1 (N303)

Chair: Min Qiang (Kent) Zhao, WISE, Xiamen University [K06] “Is Internet Job Search Still Ineffective?”

Peter J. Kuhn, University of California at Santa Barbara [K10] “Leverage Big Data in Recruitment to Help Client Get to the BIG ANSWERS”

Abdel Tefridj, Carrerbuilder.com [K11] “Simultaneous Search and Network Efficiency”

Pieter Gautier, VU University Amsterdam

10:10-10:35 Group Photo and Coffee Break

10:35-12:05 Parallel Sessions: 1A, 1A2, 1A3

1A: Search Theories (1) (N303)

Chair: Mouhua Liao, WISE, Xiamen University [2] “Informative Advertising in Directed Search Models”

Chengsi Wang, University of Mannheim [24] “Mismatch Frictions”

Xi Weng, Peking University


[XM03] “Employment Agents in the Labor Market” Mouhua Liao, WISE, Xiamen University

Discussants: Mouhua Liao, Chengsi Wang, Xi Weng

1A2: Migration (N118)

Chair: Haiyuan Wan, Institute of Social Studies, National Development & Reform Committee, China

[13] “The Agricultural Tax Abolishment Program and On-farm Labour Time in Rural China” Haiyuan Wan, Institute of Social Studies, National Development & Reform Committee,

China [44] “Can the Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme Reduce Short-Term Migration: Evidence

from West Bengal, India” Upasak Das, Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research, Mumbai

[60] “Telecommunications Externality on Migration: Evidence from Chinese Villages” Huihua Xie, National University of Singapore

[XM05] “Joint Migration Decisions of Married Couples in Rural China” Min Qiang (Kent) Zhao, WISE, Xiamen University

Discussants: Huihua Xie, Min Qiang (Kent) Zhao, Haiyuan Wan, Upasak Das

1A3: Search and Social Network (N308)

Chair: Yuanyuan Chen, Shanghai University of Finance and Economics [10] “Occupational Mismatch and Social Networks”

Gergely Horvath, Southwestern University of Finance and Economics [101] “Inequality and City Size: Evidence from China”

Dan Liu, Shanghai University of Finance and Economics [27] “Does the Social Network Lead to a Good Job? -- An Empirical Study in Urban China”

Yuanyuan Chen, Shanghai University of Finance and Economics [34] “The Impact of Social Capital on the Wage of Rural Migrants in China”

Chunchao Wang, School of Economics, Jinan University, Guangzhou Discussants: Yuanyuan Chen, Chunchao Wang, Gergely Horvath, Liu Dan

12:05-13:35 Lunch 1

13:35-15:05 Keynote Session 2 (N303)

Chair: Mouhua Liao, Xiamen University [K04] “What Can We Learn from Online Labor Markets?”

John J. Horton, New York University, Stern School of Business & oDesk Research [K08] “Understanding Search and Matching Using Data from the Online Job Board

CareerBuilder.com” Ioana Marinescu, University of Chicago

[K09] “Private Equity, Technological Investment, and Labor Outcomes” Prasanna Tambe, New York University

15:05-15:30 Coffee break


15:30-17:00 Parallel Sessions: 1B, 1B2, 1B3

1B: Empirical Search (1) (N303)

Chair: David Matsa, Northwestern University [14] “Wage Posting or Wage Bargaining? Evidence from the Employers’ Side”

Claus Schnabel, University of Erlangen-Nuremberg, IZA and LASER, Germany [40] “Not All Referrals Are Created Equal”

Tavis Barr, Beijing Normal University [41] “Boarding a Sinking Ship? An Investigation of Job Applications to Distressed Firms”

David Matsa, Northwestern University Discussants: Tavis Barr, David Matsa, Claus Schnabel

1B2: Firm and Work (N118)

Chair: Tor Eriksson, Aarhus University, Aarhus [15] “Gender Diversity in Top Management and Firm Performance: An Analysis with the

IAB-Establishment Panel” Marie-Christine Laible, Institute for Employment Research (IAB)

[16] “Employee Education and Employer Compliance: Evidence from Pension Reform in China” Mingqin Wu, South China Normal University

[28] “Organizational Structure and Firms' Demand for HRM Practices” Tor Eriksson, Aarhus University, Aarhus

[XM02] “Minimum Wages and Firm Performance” Jing Zhang, Xiamen University

Discussants: Mingqin Wu, Tor Eriksson, Jing Zhang, Marie-Christine Laible

1B3: Happiness and Health (N308)

Chair: Maoliang Ye, Renmin University of China [11] “The Impact of Diabetes on Income in China”

Chen Zhu, China Agricultural University [19] “Health Consequences of Rural-to-Urban Migration: Evidence from Panel Data in China”

Yang Song, Renmin University of China [45] “Does Money Buy Happiness? Evidence from Twins in Urban China”

Maoliang Ye, Renmin University of China Discussants: Maoliang Ye, Chen Zhu, Yang Song

17:10-18:40 Parallel Sessions: 1C, 1C2, 1C3

1C: Empirical Search (2) (N303)

Chair: Miguel Delgado Helleseter, University of California, Santa Barbara [51] “Impact of Wages on the Inter-Provincial Migration Decision of Young Men Workers in Canada”

Ping Ching Winnie Chan, Statistics Canada [21] “English Skills and Wages in a Non English Speaking Country: Findings from Online Ads in

Mexico”


Miguel Delgado Helleseter, University of California, Santa Barbara [54] “Does Everybody Need Good Neighbors? Labor Mobility Costs, Cities and Matching”

Liqiu Zhao, School of Labor and Human Resources, Renmin University of China Discussants: Liqiu Zhao, Ping Ching Winnie Chan, Miguel Delgado Helleseter

1C2: Emprical (N118)

Chair: Lei Zhang, Antai College of Economics and Management, Shanghai Jiao Tong University [20] “Explaining Gender Wage Gap in Canada: A Distributional Analysis”

Jiayuan Teng, University of Guelph [31] “Human Capital and Growth of Industries: Evidence from China's Higher Education

Expansion in the Late 1990s” Lei Zhang, Antai College of Economics and Management, Shanghai Jiao Tong University

[59] “Can Minimum Wage Reduce Wage Inequality and Working Poor in China?” Yongjian Hu, Tianjin University of Finance and Economics of China

[46] “Who Become Rural Entrepreneurs?” Li Yu, Central University of Finance and Economics

Discussants: Li Yu, Jiayuan Teng, Lei Zhang, Yongjian Hu

1C3: Chinese Session (1) (N308)

Chair: ShiSong Qing, East China Normal University 华东师范大学

[5] “Effects of Employment Contracts and Trade Unions on Labor Rights: Evidence from CGSS 2008” ShiSong Qing, East China Normal University 华东师范大学

[38] “Does Gift Expenditure Reduce Normal Consumption? ----Evidence from CFPS2010” Guangsu Zhou, Peking University

[43] “The Size Distribution of Small and Medium Cities and Labor Income Distribution” Ying Zhao, Zhongnan University of Economics and Law [cancelled]

Discussants: Liqiu Zhao, Ying Zhao, Guangsu Zhou

19:10-20:40 Dinner 1

Day 2, Sunday, 8 December 2013

8:40-10:10 Kenote Session 3 (N303) Chair: Jing Zhang, Xiamen University [K02] “Price-Setting by Online Platforms: Evidence from Online Job Boards and Resume Banks”

Vera Brencic, Alberta University [K03] “Data Thinking at Recruitment Platform”

Jian Hao, Zhaopin.com [K12] “An Equilibrium Model of Wage Dispersion with Sorting”

Jesper Bagger, Royal Holloway, University of London



10:35-12:05 Parallel Sessions: 2A, 2A2, 2A3

2A: Macro Labor (N303)

Chair: Claudia Busl, Centre for European Economic Research (ZEW) [33] “Relative Effects of Labor Taxes and Unemployment Compensation”

Been-Lon Chen, Academia Sinica [49] “Trade and Unemployment Revisited: Do Institutions Matter?”

Hans-Joerg Schmerer, University of Passau [55] “The German Labour Market Reforms in a European Context: A DSGE Analysis”

Claudia Busl, Centre for European Economic Research (ZEW) Discussants: Claudia Busl, Been-Lon Chen, Hans-Joerg Schmerer.

2A2: Family and Marriage (N118)

Section Chair: Yafeng Wang, Peking University [47] “Marriage Preference in China”

Yafeng Wang, Institute of Social Science Survey, Peking University [56] “Income Attraction: An Online Dating Field Experiment”

Jue Wang, HSBC Business School, Peking University [XM01] “The More Boys the Merrier? The Impacts of Siblings and Gender on Reciprocal

Transfers” Yang Li, WISE, Xiamen University

[102] “Son Preference and Early Childhood Investments in China” Lingsheng Meng, Tsinghua University

Discussants: Jue Wang, Wafeng Wang, Lingsheng Meng, Kailing Shen

2A3: Search Theories (2) (N308)

Chair: Xiaoming Cai, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Tinbergen Institute [18] “Collective versus Decentralized Wage Bargaining and the Efficient Allocation of

Resources” Xiaoming Cai , Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Tinbergen Institute

[36] “Effective Bargaining Power in a Heterogeneous Search and Matching Model” Bin Wang, City University of Hong Kong

[37] “Land Development, Search Frictions, and City Structure” Wei Xiao, Department of Economics, Stockholm University

Discussants: Wei Xiao, Xiaoming Cai, Bin Wang

12:05-13:35 Lunch 2

13:35-15:05 Keynote Session 4 Chair: Meng Lei, WISE, Xiamen University [K01] “Unemployment Insurance and Job Search: Lessons from Google Search Data”

Scott R. Baker, Stanford University [K05] “The Lewisian Turning Point and China’s Employment Structure”

Jack Hou, California State University, Long Beach



15:30-17:00 “Big Data”, Search and Matching (Panel Discussion) (N303) Panel Moderator: Peter J. Kuhn, University of California at Santa Barbara Pieter Gautie, VU University Amsterdam John J. Horton, New York University, Stern School of Business & oDesk Research Ioana Marinescu, University of Chicago Vera Brencic, Alberta University Jian Hao, Zhaopin.com Jesper Bagger, Royal Holloway, University of London Scott R. Baker, Stanford University

17:10-18:40 Parallel Sessions: 2B, 2B2

2B: Data (N303)

Chair: Stefan Bender, The Research Data Center, German Federal Employment Agency [Data01] “Data Development and Labour Market Research at Statistics Canada”

Ping Ching Winnie Chan, Statistics Canada [Data 03] “China Household Finance and Survey”

Jijun Tan, Southwestern University of Finance and Economics [Data 04] “China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study: Introduction”

Yafeng Wang, Institute of Social Science Survey, Peking University [Data 02] “Data Access to German Labor Market Data”

Stefan Bender, The Research Data Center, German Federal Employment Agency

2B2: Chinese Session (2) (N118)

Section Chair: Yunsen Li, Southwest University of Political Science & Law [17] “Study of Population Movements and the Changes in the Pattern of Urbanization”

Zhisheng Zhu, Capital University of Economics and Business [30] “Labor Migration and Health of Left-Behind Children”

Lianlian Lei, Shanghai University of Finance and Economics [32] “The Technological Spillover Effect of Agricultural Labor Transfer and Its Impacts”

Xiaoguang Liu, Peking University [50] “Past Rural Background and Income Differences: Evidence from Urban China”

Yunsen Li, Southwest University of Political Science & Law Discussants: Xiaoguang Liu, Yunsen Li, Zhisheng Zhu, Lianlian Lei

19:10-20:40 Dinner 2


WISE Labor 2013 Selected Abstract

(by paper id)

[2] “Informative Advertising in Directed Search Models” Chengsi Wang, University of Mannheim (with Pedro Gomis-Porqueras, Benoit Julien)

We consider a directed search environment where capacity constrained sellers reach uncoordinated buyers through costly advertising while buyers observed all prices probabilistically. We show that: (i) the equilibrium advertising intensity has an inverted U-shape in market tightness, (ii) the equilibrium advertising intensity is higher under an auction mechanism than under posted pricing, and (iii) the equilibrium price and measure of informed buyers maybe positively correlated even in large markets.

[5] “Effects of Employment Contracts and Trade Unions on Labor Rights: Evidence from CGSS 2008” ShiSong Qing, East China Normal University 华东师范大学

Whether employment contracts and trade unions can protect Chinese workers’ rights and interests has been hotly debated. Using a unique data set drawn from the Chinese General Social Survey in 2008 (CGSS2008), this paper examines the effects of two important labor market institutions - employment contracts and labor unions - on wages, benefits and working conditions (frequent overtime and illegal overtime). The results show that employment contracts play an important role in protecting workers’ legal rights and promoting the enforcement of labor standards. Compared with those who do not have employment contracts, employees with employment contracts are more likely to have mandatory social insurances and less likely to work overtime or illegal overtime. However, employment contracts may not improve workers’ interests outside the legal framework, as they do not have significant effects on wages and supplementary benefits. Although having been widely criticized by many scholars within and outside China, Chinese trade unions are not completely useless to workers. Our results suggest that unions may play a significant role in promoting the enforcement of certain labor regulations such as giving workers employment contracts and mandatory unemployment insurance. Yet, unions do not have significant effects on wages, additional benefits, and some other workers’ legal rights. We conclude that while it is necessary to further improve the employment contract system, workers’ growing interest-based demand has made the limitations of the current labor relations governance mechanism that centers on individual labor rights increasingly evident. Therefore, it is urgent for China to reform trade unions and develop an effective governance mechanism of collective labor relations.

[10] “Occupational Mismatch and Social Networks” Gergely Horvath, Southwestern University of Finance and Economics

A labor market model with heterogeneous workers and jobs is provided to investigate the effects of social networks as a job information channel regarding the level of mismatch between workers and firms. I compare the efficiency in producing good matches of the formal market to that of social networks. I assume that links between workers represent favoring relationships: workers recommend each other for any kind of jobs irrespective of resulting match quality. I show that as the probability that ties connect similar agents (homophily) increases, the mismatch level decreases in society. If this probability is sufficiently high, networks provide good matches at a higher rate than the formal market, for any efficiency level of the market. In this case the mismatch level is lower in society with social networks than it would be in a pure market economy. Hence, the presence of social networks can reduce mismatch despite favoritism. I discuss implications of mismatch creation for the expected wages of jobs obtainable through different search methods.

[11] “The Impact of Diabetes on Income in China”


Chen Zhu, China Agricultural University (with Xiaoou Liu)

Diabetes is one of the fastest growing disease burdens worldwide. The prevalence of diabetes in China has increased dramatically over the last three decades, and has surpassed that of the United States in 2011. We study how diabetes would affect labor market outcomes by using individual-level data from a natural experiment in China. Based on the standard and quantile difference-in-difference approaches, diabetes has a significant and negative impact on the income of people with newly-diagnosed diabetes relative to nondiabetic workers. The adverse effect is mainly on individuals with an annual income of 10,168 yuan (1,543 US dollars) or less, suggesting that social support may be needed to compensate lower-income people with diabetes. Decreases in income can be primarily attributed to diabetic patients' reduced productivity associated with emotions and discrimination against diabetes in the workplace.

[13] “The Agricultural Tax Abolishment Program and On-farm Labour Time in Rural China” Haiyuan Wan, Institute of Social Studies, National Development & Reform Committee,

China

This paper employs difference in difference (DID) method with the microeconomic panel data to study the impact of the Agricultural Tax Abolishment program (ATA) on agricultural labour time in rural China. We find that the policy does exert a significant effect on on-farm working, though a great amount of variables are controlled. In perspective of on-farm working decision, the program promotes 6.19% more of farmers to engage in agriculture industry in 2004. Meanwhile, for the peasants that already in the agriculture industry, the average net effect of the program is to increase agriculture labour time by 24 hours in 2004. Furthermore, the educated, young male gets more of impacts from the program in the garden product field, while it is not significant any more in the farm and livestock industries. These results are stable and robust in different sub-group datasets, which implies a strong and significant on-farm working effect of the ATA program.

[14] “Wage Posting or Wage Bargaining? Evidence from the Employers’ Side” Claus Schnabel, University of Erlangen-Nuremberg, IZA and LASER, Germany

Using a representative establishment dataset, this paper is the first to analyze the incidence of wage posting and wage bargaining in the matching process from the employer’s side. We show that both modes of wage determination coexist in the German labor market, with about two-thirds of hirings being characterized by wage posting. Wage posting dominates in the public sector, in larger firms, in firms covered by collective agreements, and in part-time and fixed-term contracts. Job-seekers who are unemployed, out of the labor force or just finished their apprenticeship are also less likely to get a chance of negotiating. Wage bargaining is more likely for more-educated applicants and in jobs with special requirements as well as in tight regional labor markets.

[15] “Gender Diversity in Top Management and Firm Performance: An Analysis with the IAB-Establishment Panel” Marie-Christine Laible, Institute for Employment Research (IAB)

In recent years the political and empirical debate about female participation in top management has intensified. The questions as to how women contribute to a company’s success and whether employing women in top management positions pays off on the bottom line remain to be conclusively answered, as the existing empirical evidence is ambiguous. Therefore, a framework to help clarify the potential mediating and moderating effects of gender diversity and firm performance is proposed. Then the effects of gender diversity in top management on firm performance in Germany are empirically analyzed using unique data from the Institute for Employment Research’s Establishment Panel Survey. Various production functions reveal a slight, yet significant negative relationship between the proportion of women in top management positions in 2008 and establishment performance. An instrument variable approach is implemented to account for endogeneity, providing evidence for the robustness of the negative link. Further estimations highlight the importance of the moderating influences of the


characteristics of the establishment, the industry and the environment.

[16] “Employee Education and Employer Compliance: Evidence from Pension Reform in China” Mingqin Wu, South China Normal University (with Zhigang Li)

The private return to education is commonly estimated to be low in China (Heckman, 2005), but it may not be so once other benefits of education are included. Applying an IV‐Poisson model to data covering around 250,000 manufacturers in China, we find that the education level of employees can significantly increase the pension contribution by employers. In particular, raising the education level of workers from junior high or lower to senior middle school can increase pension contribution of employers in our sample by 17.2%, 1.37 times the return to education in wage. This effect on pension, rarely studied in the literature, shows the importance of education in China and can have implications for other developing economies.

[17] “Study of Population Movements and the Changes in the Pattern of Urbanization” Zhisheng Zhu, Capital University of Economics and Business (with Ji Shao)

Based on the previous census data, the article analyzes the changes and the trends in the pattern of urbanization, while discusses the rationality and causes of it. The findings can be summarized as follows :( 1) Now the level of China's Urbanization is in a stage of rapid advanced by the leading cities, and it will continue in the future. However, the rate of urbanization will slow because of the rural migrant population will decrease in the future. (2) 1990-2010 China's urbanization pattern from scattered tends to concentrate. Urban population is concentrated towards the eastern coastal provinces, the typical urban agglomerations and cities more than 100 million people. (3) This centralization trend has been confirmed by Zipf index. And now the pattern of urbanization in China is moving in the direction of rationalization, but the difference there are significant differences between regions.(4) Population movements, especially the inter-provincial migration, was the most important reason of the changes in the pattern of China's urbanization. Urbanization and population movements highly synchronized.

[18] “Collective versus Decentralized Wage Bargaining and the Efficient Allocation of Resources” Xiaoming Cai , Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Tinbergen Institute

An advantage of collective bargaining agreements is that search and business-stealing externalities can be internalized. A disadvantage is that it takes more time before an optimal allocation is reached. We consider a search model with two sided heterogeneity and on-the-job search. We compare collective wage agreements (where the union sets a pay scale and the firm can select a wage from this pay scale after observing match quality) with the decentralized bargaining outcome case. We find that the is high and if workers have some bargaining power (β). Our estimates of the relative efficiency of on- versus o- the job search suggest that for most values of β (between 0.1 and 0.7), decentralized wage setting is more desirable than unionized pay scales both for the Netherlands and the US.

[19] “Health Consequences of Rural-to-Urban Migration: Evidence from Panel Data in China” Yang Song, Renmin University of China (with Wenkai Sun)

This paper provides new empirical evidence on the health consequences of rural-to-urban migration in China from 2003 to 2006. We use a new panel dataset constructed by the Research Center on the Rural Economy (RCRE) at the Ministry of Agriculture in China to investigate the short and medium term effects of migration on health status. By combining propensity-score matching (PSM) and difference-in-difference approach (DID), we attempt to overcome the migration endogeneity and estimate the average treatment effect on the treated. We find that the short-term effect of migration on health in China is close to zero and not statistically significant.


One possible reason for this finding is that the mechanisms through which migration can affect health offset each other, at least in the short run. However, the medium term effect of migration on health is significantly negative.

[20] “Explaining Gender Wage Gap in Canada: A Distributional Analysis” Jiayuan Teng, University of Guelph

This paper investigates the gap between full-time men and women within levels of human capital at different point of the wage distribution in Canada. A distributional analysis shows that male-female wage ratio widens by 10% for the university top-wage earner -- the glass-ceiling effect -- whereas the ratio displays a sharp increase in the lower-tail of the distribution for the high school dropouts -- the sticky-floor effect. When we correct for selection into nonemployment with pioneering imputation techniques, we find significantly higher gender gaps along the distribution on imputed for the high school and high school dropouts. However, these differences are insignificant for the university graduates. Using data sets rich in information on working history and occupational-specific skills, this paper also offers explanations for gender gap along the distribution within education groups. About half of the gap is contributed to the differences in labor market characteristics for the university graduates while for the high school dropouts more than 60% of gender gap remains unexplained. We also find evidence that the glass-ceiling effect in the university labor market is associated with differences in labor market characteristics. On the contrary, the sticky-floor effect for the high school dropouts is mostly driven by the finding that women’s workplace carries poor human capital.

[21] “English Skills and Wages in a Non English Speaking Country: Findings from Online Ads in Mexico” Miguel Delgado Helleseter, University of California, Santa Barbara

In spite of the generally accepted status of English as a lingua franca, the labor market returns to English for its role as an international language are understudied. In this paper I use advertisements from Computrabajo.com.mx to estimate the returns to English in Mexico. I find that the wage premium for English speakers is approximately 28 percent for the sample as a whole. The evidence suggests that English may provide a path to upward economic mobility in Mexico, and that this holds true for persons of all skill levels.

[24] “Mismatch Frictions” Xi Weng, Peking University (with Jan Eeckhout)

Workers' abilities evolve over time. As they learn, it is optimal to switch jobs when worker ability and job productivity are complements or substitutes. In the benchmark without any frictions, switching is instantaneous whenever the belief about the worker's ability reaches a threshold. We show that under complements, there is positive assortative matching. We show sufficient conditions under which this holds even if the speed of learning is different at different productivity jobs. Instead, when the arrival of new job opportunities is stochastic, there is on-the-job search driven by mismatch. When the worker reaches a mismatch threshold, she starts her search directed at different job productivity. The equilibrium is characterized by a distribution of types that has full support over all types because of the stochastic learning, but where the density is determined by equilibrium search decisions. This endogenous distribution with mismatch is novel in the literature on search, and the equilibrium mismatch is a realistic feature of the data.

[27] “Does the Social Network Lead to a Good Job? -- An Empirical Study in Urban China” Yuanyuan Chen, Shanghai University of Finance and Economics (with Min Zhang)

In a frictional labor market, uncoordinated job search caused by information asymmetry among workers leads to an equilibrium where identical firms with vacancies are matched with zero, one or multiple job applicants. This generates a wage dispersion among identical workers through a


channel of bargaining power. This paper aims to test whether this theoretical implication accounts for large wage inequality observed in the urban China. Based on the data from the Rural-Urban Migration in China and Indonesia (RumiCi) project in 2007, this paper employs the use of networks-based job searches to measure the degree of the coordination problem in the labor market. The empirical results provide supportive evidence. In the baseline case with less educated workers, the wages received by a worker who searches by network is about 15 percent higher than the one associated with searching by market. The gap almost doubles when we limit to new hires whose job tenure is no longer than 3 years. In addition, a comparison between the Middle western and Eastern provinces shows different pattern for the returns to the social network for the less educated workers. The returns are higher in the Middle Western provinces when the worker’s job tenure is long. However, this result reverses when we examine the workers with shorter job tenures. The increasing number of immigrants from the Middle Western to Eastern provinces in the past 10 years contributes greatly to the change in the returns.

[28] “Organizational Structure and Firms' Demand for HRM Practices” Tor Eriksson, Aarhus University, Aarhus (with Jaime Ortega)

A question largely left unanswered in previous studies of firms’ use of HRM practices, and the consequences thereof, is why some firms adopt these practices while others do not. We examine empirically the determinants of firms’ demand for HRM pay, work and training practices with a special focus on the role of differences in the organizational structure of firms. For this purpose we merge data from a detailed questionnaire of Danish private sector firms’ use of HRM practices with workforce information from linked employer-employee data. We find that firms with a Multi-divisional or a Hybrid structure have a greater demand for (incentive) pay practices and new work practices than companies with a Unitary (functional) form. Moreover, M- and H-firms train more of their employees than the U-firms do, suggesting that employer provided training is linked to the adoption of pay and work practices.

[30] “Labor Migration and Health of Left-Behind Children” Lianlian Lei, Shanghai University of Finance and Economics (with Feng Lv)

Being an important period for health capital to accumulate, the health status during childhood has a long-lasting effect on the health outcome of adolescence or adulthood, human capital investment as well as labor market performance. According Jacobson’s family health production function, parents make decisions about the investment of health inputs and thereby play an important role in the production of children’s health capital. Labor migration of household members out of home might change family income, daily care and the living environments of children, and thus put forward an ambiguous influence on the children’s demand for health inputs as well as health outcome. Using data from the Longitudinal Survey on Rural Urban Migration in China, this paper establishes left behind-traditional rural children and left behind-migrant children model, takes children’s HAZ, WAZ as health measurements, analyzing the overall impact of parents’ labor migration on the health of left-behind children in rural China. Given that children’s health status might reversely affect parents’ decision about whether to migrate and whether to migrate with their children, there may be endogenous problem in the two models. Therefore, we use migration proportion of other rural adults in the same city and the proportion of migrants’ children who are left behind within a city as instrumental variables (IV) of the two empirical models respectively to further identify the causal effect of labor migration. The analysis demonstrates that labor migration of household members has a negative influence on left-behind children’s HAZ and WAZ when compared to traditional rural children and also throws a negative influence on left-behind children’s HAZ and WAZ, after controlling for the measurement error, while compared with migrant children. Besides, in the left behind-traditional rural children, if both parents are away, or the longer the migration years are, the further migration destination is and the younger the children are, the adverse effects become bigger.

[31] “Human Capital and Growth of Industries: Evidence from China's Higher Education


Expansion in the Late 1990s” Lei Zhang, Antai College of Economics and Management, Shanghai Jiao Tong University

Human capital plays an important role determining individual earnings, earnings distribution, and productivity and economic growth. Yet, its empirical evaluation is often plagued by the endogeneity of education and reverse causality issues. This paper estimates the medium-term impact of higher education expansion on the growth of manufacturing industries in China, taking advantage of a nationwide natural experiment starting in 1999 that substantially expands the college access of high school graduates and generates subsequently a surge of the college-educated labor force starting in 2002. Taking advantage of the centrally-planned nature of the Chinese higher education system, I exploit the variation in the growth of college graduates across provinces that can be traced back to the college enrolment rate almost half a century ago at the conclusion of a centrally-designed relocation of higher education institutions. I conduct the IV estimation in a difference-in-differences framework and control for industry and province fixed effects. I find that industries that employ more human-capital intensive technologies in provinces with larger increases in college graduates experience significantly faster growth in total value-added, employment, and capital stock; moreover, larger and more established firm also experience faster growth in labor productivity and average labor compensation. The estimates are not driven by state-owned enterprises and are robust to the inclusion of an extensive set of control variables.

[32] “The Technological Spillover Effect of Agricultural Labor Transfer and Its Impacts” Xiaoguang Liu, Peking University (with Feng Lu)

Considering technology spillovers, this paper examines the effects of agricultural labor transfer on China’s nonagricultural sector’s technological progress, capital return and economic development. Empirical evidence shows that labor transfer has a significant role in promoting China’s industrial Total Factor Productivity (TFP) and capital return. This paper also finds that, in China’s labor transition process, transferring in specific ways has different effects on economic development: urbanization has a more significant role in promoting TFP, while employment transfer play a more important role in promoting capital return. Furthermore, urbanization promotes capital return mainly through improving TFP, while employment transfer works mainly through adding labor-input. These findings reflect the characteristics of current labor transfer mode in China and has important policy implications.

[33] “Relative Effects of Labor Taxes and Unemployment Compensation” Been-Lon Chen, Academia Sinica

Extant labor supply exhibits dramatic differences across industrialized countries. In particular, the annual working hours per person of the working age population in Europe declined on average about one fourth relative to those in the US from the early 1970s to the early 2000s. A growing body of literature has sought to understand the relative importance of the various institutional factors and policies that have been proposed as competing explanations.2 Although in the end one must perform a quantitative assessment of a particular candidate in order to claim that it is empirically relevant; when one is at the stage of contrasting alternative explanations, it is useful to note any conflicting implications across competing factors at a qualitative level as a way to differentiate between them. A notable feature in the data is that differences in average labor supply are due to quantitatively important differences along three margins: the intensive margin (hours worked per worker in employment), the employment margin (employment in the labor force) and the participation margin (the labor force in the population). The data indicates that the US added more to labor forces than Europe over the past 30 years. Despite this, existing analyses in matching models concerning differences in average labor supply typically only considered the employment margin save for Fang and Rogerson (2009) who took the intensive margin into account.3 To our knowledge, no paper incorporates all three margins when explaining declining average labor supply in the EU relative to the US.4 This paper attempts to fill the gap by envisaging the effects of changes in policies on labor supply along these three margins. …


[34] “The Impact of Social Capital on the Wage of Rural Migrants in China” Chunchao Wang, School of Economics, Jinan University, Guangzhou (with Xianbo Zhou)

This paper applies the ordered sample selection model to study the impact of social capital on the wage of rural migrants in China. Especially, we base our analysis on two kinds of social capital: “bonding” social capital and “bridging” social capital. The results show that both the “bridging” social capital and the “bonding” social capital have significant and positive effects on the migrants’ wage, but the former has a larger improvement effect. Within an enterprise the friendly relationship between migrants and local workers can help increase the probability of the migrants’ earning a high and upper middle wage by about 24%; the migrants from the southern and northern have over 10% higher probabilities of earning a high and upper middle wage than those from Guangdong and its adjacent provinces. The modes of the Chinese social net are transferring from the traditional “bonding” to the modern “bridging”.

[36] “Effective Bargaining Power in a Heterogeneous Search and Matching Model” Bin Wang, City University of Hong Kong

[Hagedorn and Manovskii(2008)]’s calibration strategy of low worker’s bargaining power and high outside option can restore the high volatility of unemployment, vacancies and market tightness observed in the U.S. data, which solves the Shimer puzzle. This paper shows that the “abnormal” low worker’s bargaining power is a structural form of a richer model that unemployment is heterogeneous in unemployment duration with the characteristic of different matching functions without imposing a low bargaining power for each worker. The steady state numerical analysis shows that the steady state worker’s aggregate bargaining power can be quite low even if the bargaining power of respective groups of workers are all high under the circumstance that both the job-finding rate and bargaining power of the newly-unemployed are higher than the non-newly unemployed group, the assumptions of which are quite reasonable in reality.

[37] “Land Development, Search Frictions, and City Structure” Wei Xiao, Department of Economics, Stockholm University (with Yasuhiro Sato)

This paper analyzes the interactions between labor and housing (and land) markets in a city. We develop a monocentric city model involving land development and frictional unemployment. Unemployment, the spatial structure of a city, land development, housing demand, prices of housing and land are all endogenously determined in the model. We then characterize two different spatial configurations, spatial mismatch equilibrium in which unemployed workers are located far from jobs and integrated equilibrium in which unemployed workers live in areas close to jobs. To better understand how two equilibria are affected by labor market parameters, such as search intensity, wage, job finding rate, job destruction rate, and so on, we implement a comparative steady state analysis. We further explored the effects of policies such as a tax on land development to subsidize residents, a subsidy to reduce residents’ commuting costs, and a subsidy to improve unemployed workers’ benefits.

[38] “Does Gift Expenditure Reduce Normal Consumption? ----Evidence from CFPS2010” Guangsu Zhou, Peking University (with Guangrong Ma)

China is a traditional society full of relationships. Chinese residents spend a large proportion of their income on gift expenditure, which would reduce normal consumption. However, gift expenditure could maintain social networks, which is useful to increase consumption by reducing income uncertainty, sharing risk and loosening budget constraint. This paper explores gift expenditure’s impact on Chinese residents’ normal consumption through the data from CFPS 2010. After using IV method to deal with the endogeneity problem, we find that gift expenditure could improve normal consumption of most families, except for those with too much gift expenditure.


The impact channel of gift expenditure on normal consumption is through reducing income uncertainty and promoting informal credit market brought with social networks.

[40] “Not All Referrals Are Created Equal” Tavis Barr, Beijing Normal University (with Raicho Bojilov, Tacksenung Jun, Lalith Munasinghe)

While referral-based hiring is widely used, the eect of referral employment on worker performance is only beginning to be understood. We find evidence that referral-based hiring substantially improves worker-firm matching. Using a dataset of real-time worker output from several US call centers run by the same company, we measure the effect of being a referred worker on productivity. We find that referred workers are more productive at the outset of a job, but that their productivity converges over time. Second, we show that this productivity advantage comes from a willingness to engage in more risk-neutral behavior in performing the task. We also find that workers with a stronger social connection to their referrer are more productive, and effect that also dissipates over time.

[41] “Boarding a Sinking Ship? An Investigation of Job Applications to Distressed Firms” David Matsa, Northwestern University (with Jennifer Brown)

We use novel data from a leading online job search platform to examine the impact of corporate distress on firms’ ability to attract job applicants. Survey responses suggest that job seekers accurately perceive firms’ financial health, as measured by companies’ credit default swap prices and accounting data. Analyzing responses to job postings by major financial firms during the recent financial crisis, we find that an increase in an employer’s distress results in fewer and lower quality applicants. These effects are particularly evident when the social safety net provides workers with weak protection against unemployment and for positions requiring advanced training.

[43] “The Size Distribution of Small and Medium Cities and Labor Income Distribution” Ying Zhao, Zhongnan University of Economics and Law (with Yali Zhao)

本文构建了 2004~2011 年面板数据，通过使用齐普夫法则（Zipf’s Law）测度了我国中小城市规模分布的特征，并在此基础上研究了该规模分布差异对劳动者工资收入的影响。分析

结果显示：（1）中小城市规模的倾斜式发展有助于劳动者工资的绝对收入，这种直接影响

约为 0.8%~ 1.1%。同时能够优化工资分配格局，直接改善程度为 4.9%~5.2%。（2）这种

倾斜式发展战略，虽然会在一定程度上缩小工资增长率与劳动生产率增长率之间的差异，

但是会在一定程度上扩大产业生产率与劳动者工资收入的缺口，约为 1%。（3）非国有经

济发展能够提高收入但是会引致分配格局的恶化，要素市场的发展能够兼顾收入的提升和

分配格局的改善。制定合理的政策组合，是我国在推进城镇化过程中跨越“中等收入陷阱”

的努力方向。

[44] “Can the Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme Reduce Short-Term Migration: Evidence from West Bengal, India” Upasak Das, Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research, Mumbai

One of the main issues that concerns policymakers and development scholars working in India is the rapid increase of rural out-migration over the past two decades. The Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) was passed in 2005 with a view to curb rural out-migration through guaranteed employment in public works. In this context, using a mix of regression analysis and ethnographic evidences, the paper aims to evaluate the impact of the programme in reducing short-term rural migration. Using probit framework, the paper finds no significant impact of household participation in MGNREGS on migration decision. However, if


we take number of days of work and annual earnings from MGNREGS as the primary variable, it is found that as the number of days of work and annual earnings by the household increases, its probability, engaging in migration reduces significantly. To account for the possible endogeneity, we make use of bivariate probit technique, probit estimation with endogenous regressors method and two stage estimation methods. But, the test statistics showed no endogeneity enabling us to use simple probit and ordinary least squares estimation methods. The results obtained corroborate with the ethnographic and anecdotal evidences. Further, the results from the regressions are validated through local polynomial smoothening simulations. The findings lay emphasis on better implementation of the programme with planning and vigilance for the households to enjoy its potential benefits including the liberty to stay back and work at their own village.

[45] “Does Money Buy Happiness? Evidence from Twins in Urban China” Maoliang Ye, Renmin University of China (with Hongbin Li, Pak Wai Liu and Junsen Zhang)

This paper estimates the effect of income on individual self-reported happiness using unique Chinese twins data. To control for omitted genetic factors and family background, we use a within-monozygotic-twin-pair fixed-effects model. The instrumental variable fixed-effects method is used to correct measurement error bias. The results are robust after we address concerns about potential biases of within-monozygotic-twin-pair estimates, use various measures of income and wealth, consider the potential cross effect of twin sibling’s income, and address the concern reverse causality. This paper adds to the literature on the effect of income on happiness, and to the best of our knowledge, it is the first such study which draws on twins data to correct both omitted variable bias and measurement error bias.

[46] “Who Become Rural Entrepreneurs?” Li Yu, Central University of Finance and Economics (with Georgeanne M Artz)

This paper investigates entrepreneurship of migrants and their location choice in attempt to draw connections between migration and economic development via business formation. Rural entrepreneurship is firstly attempted to be better understood from perspectives of individual people’s migration, human capital, social capital and family background. Using a survey on alumni of Iowa State University, we find that entrepreneurs from rural origins tend to choose starting their businesses in rural areas. Social capital and social networks, therewith the financial credits, established in one’s home region are shown to be a strong factor in location choice, which has a greater effect for rural entrepreneurs than for urban ones. We do not find the evidence that rural residents are pushed to start a business due to lack of job opportunities in remote areas.

[47] “Marriage Preference in China” Yafeng Wang, Institute of Social Science Survey, Peking University

This paper investigates the marriage preference from the characteristics desired in (potential) marriage partners, which are obtained from a marriage advertisement website. A search and matching model is developed for identifying marriage preference, the key feature of our model is that, the optimal requirement of characteristics desired in partners is not unique, it can be a set of several combinations of those characteristics. Although the data only shows the lower and upper bounds of the requirements of characteristics desired in partners, not any combination within these bounds is satisfied for the searcher. We nonparametrically estimate the "true" requirement sets for each type of searchers, and compare them to the real marriage patterns. These sets also show interesting features of substitutability among characteristics.

[49] “Trade and Unemployment Revisited: Do Institutions Matter?” Hans-Joerg Schmerer, University of Passau (with Stella Capuano)

This paper revisits the trade to unemployment nexus for Germany based on the estimation of a


model featuring heterogenous firms and search unemployment. We use a theoretical framework akin to Felbermayr, Prat, and Schmerer (2011a) and the empirical approach proposed in Helpman, Itskhoki, Muendler, and Redding (2012) in order to estimate the parameters governing the selection of firms into export and to calibrate the model to match the key moments of the German labor market. Our estimation and calibration are based on a single plant-level data source, i.e. the IAB establishment panel. The calibration shows that trade liberalization reduces unemployment in the long run. In our counter-factual policy simulations we focus on the effect of labor-market policies on the trade and unemployment nexus and we explore how the magnitude of the effects differ under different bargaining regimes.

[50] “Past Rural Background and Income Differences: Evidence from Urban China” Yunsen Li, Southwest University of Political Science & Law

Using CGSS2008, this paper analyzes the effects of past rural background on income. The estimates show that a person born in rural areas and grown up there significantly earns less than their counterparts who were born and grew up in urban areas, especially for those in middle China with education of no more than high school. Further research suggests that social networks do not contribute to the differences while the sizes of their working organization can explain some of the differences. Our findings suggest that there may be discrimination against past rural background in the labor market in urban China.

[51] “Impact of Wages on the Inter-Provincial Migration Decision of Young Men Workers in Canada”

Ping Ching Winnie Chan, Statistics Canada (with Rene Morissette)

Interprovincial migration is an important component of the demographic profiles of Canadian provinces. Prior Canadian research in the migration literature provides descriptive evidence that differential in unemployment rates, labour productivity, and the rural/urban differential structure of the provinces as key factors in driving inter-provincial migration. In this paper, we attempt to identify a causal relationship between economic incentives and inter-provincial mobility decision using an instrumental variable strategy that exploits the exogenous variation in wage growth induced by increases in world oil prices during the 2000s. One challenge to such analysis is that there is no single Canadian dataset that contains large enough sample with the information of wage and mobility decision at individual level. Therefore, a two-sample two-stage least squares estimation technique is applied in which weekly wage information from the Canadian Labour Force Survey (LFS) is used in the first stage and mobility information from the Longitudinal Worker File (LWF) is used in the second stage. Preliminary findings of the analysis suggest that young Canadian men workers respond to relative wage differential when making mobility decision.

[54] “Does Everybody Need Good Neighbors? Labor Mobility Costs, Cities and Matching”

Liqiu Zhao, School of Labor and Human Resources, Renmin University of China (with Wouter Torfs)

This paper analyzes the role of costly spatial interaction between regional labor markets in the matching process. We adapt Shimer and Smith’s (2000) assignment model with search frictions to an economy with two connected regions. We then show that the existence of labor mobility costs will induce only the high-skilled workers in the small town to commute (migrate) to the large city, while low-skilled workers continue to search jobs locally. Since there are fewer workers searching for jobs in the small town, fewer firms enter the region resulting in a decrease in the local contact efficiency for the remaining workers. Thus, only high-skilled workers benefit from the proximity to large cities, whereas low-skilled workers in the small town suffer from the deteriorated local contact efficiency. The empirical evidence using Belgian linked employer-employee data is consistent with the implications of the model.

[55] “The German Labour Market Reforms in a European Context: A DSGE Analysis”


Claudia Busl, Centre for European Economic Research (ZEW) (with Atilim Seymen)

While a widespread consensus exists among macroeconomists that the German labour market reforms in 2003-2005 have successfully contributed to the decline of the unemployment rate, critics claim that the reforms led to wage restraint and consequently consumption dampening accompanied by beggar-thy-neighbour effects, harming Germany’s trade partners. We check up on the validity of these arguments by means of a two-country DSGE model featuring intra-industry trade and labour market frictions. Our results suggest that the disproportional growth of GDP (labour productivity) in comparison to consumption (wages) are only partially driven by the reforms. However, we do not find that the reforms contribute to Germany’s trade surplus and cause negative spillovers to trading partners in terms of output and employment.

[56] “Income Attraction: An Online Dating Field Experiment” Jue Wang, HSBC Business School, Peking University (with David Ong)

Marriage rates have been decreasing in the West contemporaneously as women’s relative wages have been increasing. We found the opposite pattern in China. Prior empirical studies with US marriage data indicate that women marry up (and men marry down) economically. Furthermore, if the wife earns more, less happiness and greater strife are reported, the gender gap in housework increases, and they are more likely to divorce. However, these observational studies cannot identify whether these consequences were due to men’s preference for lower income women, or women’s preference for higher income men, or to other factors. We complement this literature by measuring income based attraction in a field experiment. We randomly assigned income levels to 360 unique artificial profiles on a major online dating website and recorded the incomes of nearly 4000 visits. We found that men of all income levels visited women’s profiles with different income levels at roughly equal rates. In contrast, women at all income levels visited men with higher income at higher rates, and surprisingly, these higher rates increased with the women’s own income. Men with the highest level of income got ten times more visits than the lowest. We discuss how the gender difference in “income attraction” might shed light on the wage premium for married men, and men in general, and other stylized facts, e.g., why the gender gap in housework is higher for women who earn more than their husbands. To our knowledge, this is the first field experimental study of gender differences in preferences for mate income.

[59] “Can Minimum Wage Reduce Wage Inequality and Working Poor in China?” Yongjian Hu, Tianjin University of Finance and Economics of China

Along with rapid economic growth over the past several decades in China, wage and income inequalities have also widened over time. Against this background, this paper intends to analyze the relationship between the labor market institutions and the labor market outcomes by focusing on the effects of compulsory minimum wages on wage distributions and the working poor.

Our study chooses the year of 2004 as a starting point in consideration of the fact that the new regulation of minimum wages begun to implement in 2004. The main purpose of our studies is to utilize quantitative methods to investigate whether the new regulation played a role in preventing wage inequality from further widening and to examine the relationship between minimum wages and the working poor.

The results show that, without the increased level of minimum wages from 2004, the overall wage inequality could further widen in 2006. This observation holds true for males and female workers and for different regions. As for the relationship between minimum wages and working poor, the analysis demonstrate that those with monthly wages less than statutory minimum floor are more likely to be working poor.

The paper concludes that China’s compulsory minimum pay might raise the wages of poor-paid workers, but the system itself is only one instrument in helping poor-paid workers. To a large extent, the rise of wages depends on collective wage bargaining and tripartite social dialogue. For


China where the real function of trade union has been questioned, solving the issues of widening inequality and the working poor still has a long way to go. There is an urgent need to take comprehensive measures. The key measures include strengthening labor laws and the inspections against various forms of discrimination, and more importantly, reforming current Hukou system which artificially created barriers for labors’ free movement. The government could also take measures to encourage employers to invest more in training which will obviously improve unskilled workers’ productivities and their employability.

[60] “Telecommunications Externality on Migration: Evidence from Chinese Villages” Huihua Xie, National University of Singapore (with Yi Lu and Lixin Colin Xu)

In this paper, we use a unique natural experiment in Chinese villages to investigate whether access to telecommunications—in particular, landline phones—increases the likelihood of outmigration. By using regional and time variations in the installation of landline phones, our difference-in-differences (DID) estimation shows that the access to landline phones increases the ratio of outmigrant workers by 2 percentage points, or about 50 percent of the sample mean in China. The results remain robust to a battery of validity checks. Furthermore, landline phones affect outmigration through two channels: information access on job opportunities and timely contact with left-behind family members. Our findings underscore the positive migration externality of expanding telecommunications access in rural areas, especially in places where migration potential is large.

[101] “Inequality and City Size: Evidence from China” Dan Liu, Shanghai University of Finance and Economics (with Binkai Chen and Ming Lu)

In this paper we examine the relationship between city size and income inequality using the 1% sample from 2005 Census in China. We calculate various measures of city-level urban income inequality for 258 Chinese cities. It is found that overall income inequality is higher for larger cities after controlling for education compositions and industry compositions, and so is between-group income inequality. There is no significant relationship between city size and residual income inequality. These results hold when population in 1953 or population growth rate from 1953 to 1982 is used as instrument variable. In addition, we identify the potential channels through which city size can affect inequality. It can be shown that firm compositions, education compositions and educational inequality together can explain most of the correlation between city size and inequality. Especially, we find that the share of people who open their own business increases inequality significantly.

[102] “Son Preference and Early Childhood Investments in China” Lingsheng Meng, Tsinghua University (with Douglas Almond and Hongbin Li)

Where the fraction of male births is abnormally high, heterogeneity in son preference would suggest that parents of sons may have a stronger son preference than parents of daughters. Child sex may have become a stronger signal of parental sex preferences over time as the cost of sex selection has declined and sex ratios at birth have increased. In this paper, we build on Chen, Li and Meng's 2013 analysis of ultrasound diffusion across counties in China, which was found strongly predictive of increased sex ratios at birth. Here, we consider whether ultrasound diffusion changed the pattern of early childhood investments in girls versus boys. If parental investments (like sex ratios) respond to parental sex preferences, postnatal investments in girls should increase with the diffusion of ultrasound and increased prenatal sex selection. In contrast, the prediction for investments prior to birth is ambiguous. For pregnancies carried to term, ultrasound revealed sex as much as six months prior to delivery, enabling gender discrimination in in utero investments. In contrast, sex selective abortions would tend to increase in utero investments in girls through preference sorting. We evaluate these competing predictions using microdata on investments in children using the 1992 UNICEF Chinese Children Survey, conducted by the National Bureauof


Statistics. We find that prenatal discrimination against girls seems to be confined tosex-selective abortion. There are some small positive compositional effects on postnatal investment measures for girls.

[Data 02] “Data Access to German Labor Market Data” Stefan Bender,The Research Data Center, German Federal Employment Agency

The Research Data Center (FDZ) of the German Federal Employment Agency (BA) in the Institute for Employment Research (IAB) facilitates access to micro data on the labor market for non-commercial empirical research. The FDZ data on individuals, households and establishments come from several sources. Administrative data are obtained from the notification process of the social security system and the internal procedures of the Federal Employment Agency. They contain daily information on the employment and unemployment history of individuals, occupations, education, wages, benefits, job search activities and participation in training programs covered by the German social security system. The IAB also conducts its own surveys of households and firms. The data include establishment-level survey and administrative data on German employers and linked-employer-employee data. The administrative and survey data can be analyzed separately, but all IAB surveys can also be linked to the respondent administrative records. Other linked data, which will be offered in the near future include combinations of administrative records with commercial business data (Bureau van Djik) or patent data.

[XM03] “Employment Agents in the Labor Market” Mouhua Liao, WISE, Xiamen University

In this paper, employment agents are introduced as a third type of agent in a labor market with search frictions. Each type of agent matches pairwise with the other two types through two independent matching processes. Each process depends on the ratio of the agent’s own type to the other type in the match (the inverse of market tightness). Job matches can be formed directly between a worker and a …firm, or indirectly through an employment agent. It is shown that there is a unique steady-state equilibrium in which employment agents are active. The presence of employment agents enhances workers’ welfare. Particularly, workers’ welfare decreases as the outside option of employment agents or firms increases. When job matches are heterogeneous in productivity, jobs filled through employment agents have higher average productivity than ones done directly.

[XM05] “Joint Migration Decisions of Married Couples in Rural China”

Min Qiang (Kent) Zhao, WISE, Xiamen University

(with Lei Meng and Dewi Silvany Liwu)

According to the National Bureau of Statistics of China (2011), more than half of rural migrant workers are married. In this paper we document the changing migration patterns of married couples in rural China in the past two decades and analyze their temporary migration decisions. The current approaches that examine Chinese migration issues do not explicitly take into account of the fundamental differences between personal and family decisions. Married couples’ migration decisions are not purely individual responses to different social and economic opportunities, but jointly determined within a family unit. We extend the current approaches to explicitly model joint migration behaviors of married couples. Using Rural-Urban Migration in China (RUMiC) Survey, we examine important determinants, such as the numbers of pre-school and school-age children, which could affect joint migration decisions of married couples. Our estimation and simulation results show that when analyzing married persons’ migration choices, it is more desirable to use a multiple choice model than a binary-choice model because 1) it more effectively deals with nonlinearities created by joint decision-making; 2) it offers the possibility to study compositional change of joint migration outcomes; 3) it performs better in both interpolation and extrapolation predictions.


List of Participants (by Surname)

Full Name Email Organization Session(s) Paper id Jesper Bagger [email protected] Royal Holloway, University of London Keynote 3 K12 Scott R. Baker [email protected] Stanford University Keynote 4 K01 Tavis Barr [email protected] Beijing Normal University 1B 40 Stefan Bender [email protected] Institute for Employment Research (IAB), Germany 2B Data02 Vera Brencic [email protected] Alberta University Keynote 3 K02 Claudia Busl [email protected] Centre for European Economic Research (ZEW) 2A 55 Xiaoming Cai [email protected] Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Tinbergen Institute 2A3 18

Ping Ching Winnie Chan [email protected]; [email protected]

Statistics Canada 1C 51

Been-Lon Chen [email protected] Academia Sinica 2A 33 Yuanyuan Chen [email protected] Shanghai University of Finance and Economics 1A3 27 Upasak Das [email protected] Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research 1A2 44 Miguel Delgado Helleseter [email protected] University of California Santa Barbara 1C 21 Tor Eriksson [email protected] Aarhus University 1B2 28 Pieter Gautier [email protected] VU University Amsterdam Keynote 1 K11 Jian Hao [email protected] Zhaopin.com Keynote 3 K03

John J. Horton [email protected] New York University, Stern School of Business & oDesk Research

Keynote 2 K04

Gergely Horvath [email protected] Southwestern University of Finance and Economics 1A3 10 Jack Hou [email protected] California State University, Long Beach Keynote 4 K05 Yongjian Hu [email protected] Tianjin University of Finance and Economics of China 1C2 59 Peter J. Kuhn [email protected] University of California at Santa Barbara Keynote 1, Panel Discussion* K06 Marie-Christine Laible [email protected] Institute for Employment Research (IAB), Germany 1B2 15


Full Name Email Organization Session(s) Paper id Lianlian Lei [email protected] Shanghai University of Finance and Economics 2B2 30 Yang Li [email protected] WISE, Xiamen University 2A2 XM01 Yunsen Li 李云森 [email protected] Southwest University of Political Science & Law 2B2 50 Mouhua Liao [email protected] WISE, Xiamen University 1A, Keynote 2* XM03 Dan Liu [email protected] Shanghai University of Finance and Economics 1A3 101 Xiaoguang Liu [email protected] Peking University 2B2 32 Xiaoou Liu [email protected] Renmin University of China 1B3 11 Ioana Marinescu [email protected] University of Chicago Keynote 2 K08 David Matsa [email protected] Northwestern University 1B 41 Lei Meng [email protected] WISE, Xiamen University 1A2, Keynote 4* XM05 Lingsheng Meng [email protected] Tsinghua University 2A2 102 Shisong Qing [email protected] East China Normal University 华东师范大学 1C3 5

Hans-Joerg Schmerer [email protected]; [email protected]

University of Passau 2A 49

Claus Schnabel [email protected] University of Erlangen-Nuremberg 1B 14 Kailing Shen [email protected] WISE, Xiamen University 2A2 XM01 Yang Song [email protected] School of Economics, Renmin University of China 1B3 19 Prasanna Tambe [email protected] New York University Keynote 2 K09 Jijun Tan [email protected] Southwestern University of Finance and Economics 2B Data03 Abdel Tefridj [email protected] Carrerbuilder.com Keynote 1 K10 Jiayuan Teng [email protected] University of Guelph 1C2 20

Haiyuan Wan [email protected] Institute of Social Studies, National Development & Reform Committee, China

1A2 13

Bin Wang [email protected] City University of Hong Kong 2A3 36


Full Name Email Organization Session(s) Paper id Chengsi Wang [email protected] University of Mannheim 1A 2 Chunchao Wang [email protected] School of Economics, Jinan University, Guangzhou 1A3 34 Jue Wang [email protected] HSBC Business School, Peking University 2A2 56 Yafeng Wang [email protected] Institute of Social Science Survey, Peking University 2A2 47 Xi Weng [email protected] Peking University 1A 24 Mingqin Wu [email protected] South China Normal University 1B2 16 Wei Xiao [email protected] Department of Economics, Stockholm University 2A3 37 Huihua Xie [email protected] National University of Singapore 1A2 60 Maoliang Ye [email protected] Renmin University of China 1B3 45 Li Yu [email protected] Central University of Finance and Economics 1C2 46 Shuaizhang Feng [email protected] Shanghai University of Finance and Economics Jing Zhang [email protected] School of Economics, Xiamen University 1B2, Keynote 3* XM02

Lei Zhang [email protected] Antai College of Economics and Management, Shanghai Jiao Tong University

1C2 31

Liqiu Zhao [email protected] School of Labor and Human Resources, Renmin University of China

1C 54

Min Qiang (Kent) Zhao [email protected] WISE, Xiamen University 1A2, Keynote 1* XM05 Ying Zhao [email protected] Zhongnan University of Economics and Law 1C3 43 Guangsu Zhou [email protected] Peking University 1C3 38 Chen Zhu [email protected] China Agricultural University 1B3 11 Zhisheng Zhu 朱志胜 [email protected] Capital University of Economics and Business 2B2 17

Note: the * refers to chairs in the keynote sessions. Some statistics: we have 62 participants, where 35 from mainland China (6 from Xiamen University), 1 from Taiwan, 1 from HKSAR, 1 from India, 1 from Singapore, 3 from Canada, 9 from the U.S., 6 from Germany, 1 from Denmark, 2 from Netherland, 1 from Sweden, 1 from UK.

2013 international symposium on contemporary labor...

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