新《劳动合同法》与简单劳动力成本——来自城市劳动力市场和中关村企业的双重证据

New Labor Contract Law and Simple Labor Costs——Twofold Evidence from Urban Labor Markets and Zhongguancun Companies

2008年新劳动合同法的实施引起了学术界的广泛关注,很多经济学家担忧它会推动简单劳动力用工成本的上升并拖累中国的长期经济增长,少数研究则仅仅提供了来自劳动力市场或者来自企业层面的单方面证据,且研究结论并不一致,本文则同时提供来自城市劳动力市场和企业两个层面的一致证据。首先利用CHIP调查的2002年、2007年、2013年劳动力样本展开实证研究发现,在控制了最低工资水平、农民工来源地收入水平等因素之后,尽管新劳动合同法显著提高了民工签订合同的比例,但只有签订长期或固定劳动合同才会显著提高低技能民工的工资水平,签订短期劳动合同并不能显著提高他们的工资水平;然后,将倍差法(Difference-in-Difference)应用于2001-2012年中关村企业面板数据,发现新劳动合同法并没有显著提高企业的用工成本,也没有显著降低企业的劳均利润,且这一结论对于劳动力密集型的服务业、零售和餐饮业而言都成立;而基于上述两个实证研究得出的另一个一致结论是,以农民工为主体的简单劳动力工资上涨的一个重要推动力来自最低工资标准的提高。提供的两个证据有助于理解新劳动合同法的颁布实施对于经济运行的影响,也说明不宜夸大新劳动合同法通过提高简单劳动力成本而对中国长期经济增长产生的负面影响。

The promulgation of the 2008 New Labor Contract Law has attracted a lot of attention from scholars. Many economists worried that it would play an important role in raising simple labor costs and, as a result, would be detrimental to long-term economic growth in China. However, a small number of studies merely provide evidence either from labor markets or from companies and do not arrive at the same conclusion. This paper provides convincing evidence both from urban markets and from companies.First, an empirical study based on a sample of labor force collected from CHIP 2002, 2007 and 2013 shows that by controlling factors like the minimum wage and hometown income level for rural migrants,even if the new labor contract law has strikingly increased the rate of signing a co ntract among migrant workers, only signing long-term contracts will significantly improve the wages of unskilled migrant workers. Signing short-term contracts has no effect on improving their wages. Second, by applying a DID method to a panel data from Zhongguancun companies from 2001-2012, research finds that the new labor contract law neither significantly increased labor costs of companies nor reduced profits per worker. Moreover, this conclusion is valid for the labor-intensive service industry, retail industry and catering industry. Both empirical studies draw the conclusion that an increase in the minimum wage is a critical driving force for the rise in simple labor wages of migrant workers. The evidence provided by the two studies can help understand the impact of the new labor contract law on economy. So, it is not advisable to exaggerate the negative effect of the 2008 Labor Contract Law on long-term economic growth in China by increasing simple labor costs.