最低工资规制与中国企业的市场存活

Minimum Wage Regulation and Chinese Enterprises’ Survival

作为政府干预劳动力市场的有力工具，最低工资规制不可避免地对企业行为产生影响。基于1998—2007年中国工业企业和所在区县最低工资标准的匹配数据，本文采用生存模型考察最低工资执行对企业退出行为的影响。研究表明，最低工资提高了企业用工成本，从而对企业存续产生负面冲击，其主要机制是最低工资压缩了企业“人力资本投资”（而非“物质资本扩张”）。异质性讨论发现，相比于无工会的企业，拥有工会组织的企业更能发挥发声机制，利用最低工资良好互动反而降低了企业退出风险。在不同规模和所有制企业中，最低工资对企业存活会产生不同影响。进一步发现，最低工资在一定程度上扮演了“清理效应”角色，在迫使低效率企业加速退出之同时，也为高效率企业腾挪出更多的市场空间和存续机会。本研究不仅客观地评估最低工资规制对于企业存活的影响，还能为中国企业积极回应劳动力市场政策，实现生命力建设提供重要的政策洞见。

As a powerful policy to maneuver the labor market, minimum wage regulation inevitably influences business activities. Based on the firm-level panel data covering all above-designated-sized industrial companies from 1998 to 2007, together with the district or county level minimum wages data, this paper utilizes a survival analysis to examine the impact of minimum wage regulation on business exit in China. The results show that minimum wage increases labor costs, forces companies to withdraw faster, and affects the survival chances through the compression of enterprise human-capital investment rather than that of fixed-capital expansion. A further discussion finds that, compared with non-union enterprises, firms with unions can better transmit voices from workers, reduce internal cost, and decrease the likelihood of exit. Among companies with various sizes and different types of ownership, minimum wage regulation has different effects on the survival rate. Further research indicates that minimum wage regulation partly plays a cleansing role, and, while forcing inefficient enterprises to exit, saves more market space and creates opportunities for efficient ones. This study not only objectively assesses the impact of the minimum wage regulation on the survival of industrial enterprises, but also provides important insights for Chinese enterprises to actively respond to labor market policies and achieve vitality construction.