The Effect on Rural Labor Mobility from Registration System Reform in China

      Sun Wenkai, Bai Chongen and Xie Peichu
           (School of Economics, Renmin University of China; School of Economics and Management, Tsinghua University; National School of Development, Peking University)

Abstract:China’s registration system has been the biggest obstacle to labor mobility. It is widely believed that reform for the system induced a great lot of permanent migration in recent years. However, there were few studies for the reform’s effect on rural workers mobility which is also an important part of urbanization. After the central government definitely made the objects of registration system reform clear as strictly control the scale of mega-cities and rational develop medium-sized cities and small cities in 1998, a newquestion raised: is the system reform effective for re-distribute farmer workers? This paper mainly discussed the effect by medium-sized city household registration reform during 2003—2006. The quantitative effect on farmer worker mobility acted by registration system reform was studied by using Difference in Difference regression with micro control variables. It found that there is little evidence for the significant effects of registration reform on farmer workers mobility. In addition, social network and increasing farming income have significant effects on farmer workers out of village.
Key Words:Registration System Reform; Labor Mobility; Difference in Difference
JEL Classification:J38, J43, O15

                  Trade Openness，Induced Employment Adjustment and the Scale Change of Chinese Local Government Real Expenditure

                 Gao Lingyun and Mao Risheng
                （Institute of World Economics and Politics，CASS）

Abstract:How does trade openness influence the scale change of government expenditure？Compensation hypothesis and efficiency hypothesis put forward polarity judgment. The paper points out the source of contradiction outcomes in previous literature through using sys-GMM estimation and introducing the employment adjustment which ignored in Rodrik model. Moreover，trade openness improves the efficiency of actual local government’s investment and transfer payment. Furthermore，beside of inertia and planning, employment reallocation induced by expected external risk and trade openness influences investment expenditure significantly. Dependence rate, regional size and negative employment reallocation induced by trade influence consumption expenditure significantly. Transfer payment can be influenced by Wagner’ law, urbanization rate,