贸易自由化加剧就业市场波动了吗?——基于劳动需求弹性角度的实证检验

Does Trade Liberalization Aggravate the Volatility and Risk of Employment?:An Empirical Study on Labor Demand Elasticity

劳动需求弹性事关就业市场波动、工作稳定性和劳动雇佣关系。本文利用1998~2007年中国工业企业面板数据,检验贸易开放对劳动需求弹性的影响。实证研究得出的主要结论有:第一,中国工业企业的劳动需求弹性约为-0.263^-0.241,符合文献中提出的劳动需求弹性应在-0.75^-0.15区间内的判断;第二,贸易开放将使中国劳动需求更富有弹性,加剧就业市场波动,且该结论呈现稳健性,但是不同产业部门在受到贸易开放冲击时,劳动需求弹性的变化方向及程度不相同,在高技术企业就业的劳动者面临更大的就业风险;第三,贸易提高劳动需求弹性主要通过增强其他生产要素与劳动力之间的替代效应发生作用。该研究可为防御改革开放过程中产生的就业及社会波动风险提供有价值的政策启示。

Using China's firm-level panel data set during 1998 ~ 2007,this paper examines the impacts of trade liberalization on labor demand elasticity which reflects labors' insecurity,employment volatility and the relationship between employers and workers.The paper draws three main conclusions:( 1) the labor demand elasticity of China's industrial firms is estimated in the range of- 0.263 ^- 0.241,which is in the reasonable range;( 2) the regression results of the full sample show that trade openness makes China's labor demand more elastic,which appears robust in the next robustness check while it varies with different industrial sectors,that is,the labor demand of high-tech firms shows to be more elastic than that of low-tech firms;( 3) the mechanism of labor-demand-elasticity-increasing effect of trade openness mainly lies in the strong substitution effect of other relative cheaper factors.These findings are useful for policymakers to protect labors' security and mitigate the risks associated with social fluctuation in the context of the trade liberalization and openness.