Title: Migrant Workers and Cities in China

Speaker: Assistant Professor Daxuan Zhao, Renmin University of China

Time: April 19th, 2017 13:30–14:45

Venue: Conference Room 106B, Zhonghui Building (College of Economics, JNU)

Abstract:

The recent urbanization in China has caused a large number of migrant workers to leave their hometowns and separate from their families to earn more money in the city. This paper constructs a model to demonstrate that highly skilled cities are more productive but that total consumption there does not increase more than in other cities, since the production and consumption by migrant workers are separate. Thus, real wages in the skilled cities decline slowly with the expansion of the city. Economic agglomeration is enhanced.