题目：Migration Restrictions and the Migrant-Native Wage Gap: The Role of Wage Setting and Sorting

主讲人：Ben Zou, Purdue University

时间：2024年5月20日（星期一）下午13:30-15:00

地点：暨南大学（石牌校区）中惠楼106会议室

主讲人简介：

Ben Zou is an assistant professor of Economics at the Mitchell E. Daniels, Jr. School of Business at Purdue University. He is an empirical economist with research interests in labor economics, urban economics and economic development.

Abstract：

This study examines the factors contributing to the wage gap between migrants and natives, as well as the influence of internal mobility constraints on this gap. Using matched employer-employee panel data from a Chinese metropolis, we estimate a two-way fixed effect wage model and decompose the wage gap into differences in skills, wage setting, and sorting between migrants and natives. The decomposition analysis reveals that, despite migrants having higher skills than natives, they earn lower wages within the same employer and are less likely to be employed by companies offering high wage premiums. These two factors account for a 10 percentage-point wage penalty for migrants with comparative skills. Additionally, we investigate the impact of a policy change that restricted the ”hukou” (household registration) quota to understand the mechanisms underlying the firm-specific pay premiums for natives. Following a one-third reduction in hukou quotas, wages of migrants increased relative to those of native workers, particularly in the private sector where significant quota reductions occurred, and among young and high-skilled migrants who have a higher demand for hukou. This effect is mainly driven by an increase in the wage premium paid by employers due to the unavailability of hukou. However, the tightening of the hukou quota exacerbates the misallocation of workers, making high-ability migrants more likely to work in low-productivity public sectors.