Venue: Room 418, School of Economics, Yuquan Campus
Speaker:
Dr. Huang Wei is the President’s Assistant Professor in the Department of Real Estate and Department of Strategy and Policy at National University of Singapore.
Abstract:
This paper investigates how households adjust to local labor market shocks caused by trade liberalization in urban China. Exploiting regional variation in the exposure to tariff cuts resulting from the WTO accession, we find that regions that initially specialized in industries facing larger tariff cuts experienced relatively larger wage declines. Households responded to the shock in several ways, including more female household members working, more young adults co-residing with parents, and households saving less. These findings suggest an insurance role of households against trade-induced labor market shocks.