L. Colin Xu. Presentation for Managing Risk for Development

Transcription

1 Determinants of job growth, job quality, and their mechanisms: The Role of Business environment L. Colin Xu Presentation for Managing Risk for Development

2 Basic framework to think about enterprises and risk/welfare of citizens: Citizens welfare related to enterprises Y = f( ) Firm size and age: Potentially endogenous Political and institutional factors Geography, agglomeration Infrastructure Labor regulation Other business environment: access to finance, corruption, entry deregulation

3 outcomes Conventional outcomes: job growth (L growth or sales growth), unemployment, job quality (proxied by labor productivity, TFP, wage), Household counterpart wage volatility at firm level not much research. Wage arrears: perhaps more research, but I m not familiar with. (Transition) Intermediate mechanisms: Firm size and age key determinants of job growth & productivity (Haltiwanger and his co-authors) churning, job reallocation across sectors and firms (Davis and Haltiwanger; Dong and Xu 2009) Entry of new firms (Huang 2012; Xu 2011) Informality (affecting job quality) Economic structure: Size structure and capacity (Li, Long and Xu 2012) Sector structure (McMillan and Rodrik 2011). The division of surplus between labor and capital: wages versus profits (China as an example)

4 Determinants of job growth (Clarke, Li, Xu, ongoing) emp. growth ij f (firm char, skills, business environment, agglomerat ion/trading costs) Data: WBES, around 100 countries. Firm-level. Small, young: faster. Foreign firms: faster. Local skills: slower.

5 Determinants of job growth (Clarke, Li, Xu, ongoing) Business environment: Macro (inflation), corruption, power shortage, access to bank finance: no effect. No effect only for job growth of existing firms. Could be important for birth of new firms, structure of the economy. Crime: -*. Strength of labor union: +*. Firing costs: -*. Agglomeration matters more than BE: Population +*; Urbanization: 1(capital city), % in 1mil cities, +* Trading costs: transportation costs to nearest port: -*; local web intensity: +*.

6 Key determinants of productivity, sales growth (Harrison, Lin, Xu 2011) Same data. Productivity quality of job. Y = {LP, TFP, sales growth; export, investment} Party monopoly has a strong negative effects for both productivity and growth. Relative importance of property rights vs access to finance (Johnson et al 2002; McMillan and Woodruff JEP; Cull and Xu 2005) The importance of accountability (i.e., village election) in Chinese villages for consumption insurance (Gan et al. 2010). Access to finance important, especially access to informal finance. Allen Qian Qian (2005), Cull and Xu (2005).

7 Key determinants of productivity, sales growth (Harrison, Lin, Xu 2011) Labor regulation: tradeoff of higher productivity and lower growth. Foreign ownership: +*, but quantitatively not that important. Corruption: not that important. Other studies: negative effects of corruption on TFP in Uganda (Svensson QJE), China (Fang et al. 2011). African formal manufacturing firms are doing ok Except in party monopoly, access to finance, etc. Once control for business environment, institutions, geography, African formal manufacturing firms have conditional advantage. McMillan and Rodrik (2011): but Africa has too little manufacturing.

8 The importance of structural change (McMillan and Rodrik 2011; Li, Long and Xu 2012) Y Y Y economy - wide LP. (both should be in level, t it i1, n t i1, n y partial analysis of since i1, n labor share in sector i. i, tk i, t y i1, n i, t y i, t i, tk i, t i, t y i, t i1, n y i, t : the within component of : the structuralchange the structuralchange i, t y sector i LP. not in log) change. component of productivity within a sector can be misleading component could productivity change. be big. productivity.

9 McMillan and Rodrik 2011 Africa s formal manufacturing firms are doing ok (Harrison, Lin, Xu 2012). too few such jobs. Structural problems are major concerns: Asia: structural change important for aggregate labor productivity growth Africa and Latin America: structural change component non-existent or negative. High-income countries: low structural change component, not surprising. Argentina in the last two decades, manufacturing losing ground (high productivity sector), community, personal, government services gaining ground in jobs (among the least productive).

10 McMillan and Rodrik 2011 Nigeria and Zambia: bad structural change ag share rose; manufacturing and productive tradable services contracted. Africa in general: job gains in community, personal and gov services (high informality, low productivity), loss in wholesale and retail trade (relatively high productivity in Africa), meager expansion of manufacturing. India and Thailand: Good structural change. agriculture dropped, manufacturing expanded.

11 McMillan and Rodrik 2011 structural-change productivity growth = f(x) Agriculture share: +*. (conditional convergence) Labor rigidity: -* Under-valuation of currency: +*. industrial policy? (also self-discovery ). Reliance on raw materials exports: -*. few jobs though high productivity Africa and Latin America dummies no longer significant.

12 Labor regulation, size structure and the China-India difference in Productivity (Li, Long and Xu 2012) Similar income in 1980, but China s double that of India in early Why?

13 0 Density ln(l): China vs. India ln(l) kernel = epanechnikov, bandwidth = China India

14 labor regulation firm size share of large firms in a city (agglomera tion) ( RD; city pop; local K/L ) increases productivity: (i) increasing returns to agglomerat ion (ii) threshold effects (iii) complementarity withskills (iv) stronger for high K/L industries (v) stronger for large firms (vi) no effects in India, but strong in China (threshold).

15 Further evidence: Productivity drop for L>50 in India, not in China. In India, esp. for pro-labor states. Firm size and agglomeration accounts for all of the productivity differential between China and India (around 2002).

16 How did China take off? (Huang 2012) again, structure matters Key challenges for developing countries: Rural vs. urban, dual economy. China in 1978, poverty, planned economy. What led to the huge growth and reduction of poverty? TVEs, previously viewed as collective, were actually mostly private. Importance of private property rights and incentives. Land leasing, dual-track pricing. The government show signs of credible commitment.

17 How did China take off? (Huang 2012) again, structure matters Key: no longer entry barrier, could open business with few restrictions. And in the 1980s, strong financial liberalization at the countryside. Unfortunately this was reversed in the 1990s. Private property + no entry barrier + financial liberalization created huge amounts of new jobs: In 1985, 12 million TVEs, with 10 million private. Even with low education, poor infrastructure, ambiguity of property rights. Other studies emphasizing entry deregulations: Besley and Burges: complementarity of license Raj (production market liberalization) and labor market flexibility in India. Shleifer: hands off for most industries, free entry sufficient. Xu (2011) summarizes evidence of the positive effects of entry deregulation.

18 World-wide evidence on labor regulation (Xu 2011) In China, locations with more flexible labor force (nonpermanent workers) have higher performance (Hallward-Driemeier et al. 2006). China has flexible labor market finding of vigorous churning and excess job reallocations relative to ECA countries. India: stringent labor regulations smaller firm size, more informality (Amin 2009a). Also substituted computer for labor (Amin 2009b). Indonesia: Higher minimum wage, lower employment, tradeoff between quantity and quality. Informal labor regulation (press campaign for higher wage for foreignowned shoe factories) higher wage, no effects on L, but lower profits, lower productivity growth, and plant closures for smaller exporters.

19 World-wide evidence on labor regulation (Xu 2011) Brazil: stringent labor regulations smaller firm size; higher unemployment. Also lower productivity and investment. A mechanism: L regulation higher LP labor costs, higher productivity differential across firms (Petrin and Sivadasan 2006). Stringent labor regulation reduce job turnover and creative destruction, esp. in industry-size categories with inherently higher job turnover (Haltiwanger et al. 2008).

20 How did China pull off a largest labor restructuring program in human history (successfully)? (Dong and Xu 2008, 2009) Around , huge labor downsizing for SOEs , the state and collective sectors combined lost 53 million jobs. No strong social unrest. Dong and Xu (2009): in Relative to ECA countries, higher gross job creation rate, higher gross job destruction rate, higher excess job reallocation rate. A lot of churning. Similar to mature less regulated countries (UK); more churning than Belgium, Netherlands, and Germany. Similar behavior between SOEs and private firms in labor adjustment (with sales, wage,.)

21 The cost of downsizing (Dong and Xu 2008) The downsizing program around Mainly on SOEs. More likely when older, larger, with more excess labor. More likely when p drops, Private firms responded more dramatically. Short-term negative effects on TFP. The distribution of surplus after downsizing is more favor of labor in SOEs (i.e., less wage cut, more profits drop).

22 To summarize Key importance of agglomeration for job growth. Free entry important for job creation. Labor flexibility likely important for low informality, high job growth. structural changes important informal vs formal, bad jobs vs good jobs, labor mobility from rural to urban Do government play an important role in ensuring good structure? Access to finance important, including informal finance. Private property rights protection important Party monopoly likely big impacts Finding right products (self discovery).