市场化进程、劳动者社群网络与城市内资源误置

Marketization,Community Networks in Labor Market and Resource Misallocation within Cities

中国劳动力市场上,亲朋好友等"强关系"构成的"社群网络"有重要影响。文章考察了社群网络在不同市场化水平下对城市和行业内资源误置的影响,结果发现:在市场化水平较低的阶段,社群网络能缓解信息和承诺问题,弥补正式制度的缺失和公共服务的不足,降低城市内资源误置。随着市场化进程的推进,其正面作用逐步消退,"裙带关系"和分割市场等负面影响最终损害资源在城市内的配置效率。文章采用了多个分项指数代替市场化综合指标检验,系数估计得到了与理论假说逻辑一致的结果。而异质性检验发现,上述效应在进入退出壁垒较高行业、高技术密集型行业和资本密集型行业更为显著。

The growth of aggregate TFP depends not only on technological progress but also on the optimal allocation of production factors. Hsieh and Klenow(2009)developed a monopolistic competition framework,and found out that there would exist large dispersion of firms’ TFPR when resources could not be reallocated from low-productivity plants to high-productivity plants due to price distortion. Using the data of Chinese manufacturing firms to estimate this model,they found that if the allocation efficiency of capital and labor in China was the same as in the US,aggregate TFP would be boosted by 30%–50%.Based on this groundbreaking paper,a large number of literatures have studied resource misallocation in China from the perspective of factor market distortions and government interventions,while little attention has been paid to the role of informal institution. However,community networks based on strong interpersonal ties such as kinship,geographical proximity,common educational or vocational experiences play an important role in the labor market,which have a profound effect on labor resource allocation. Traditionally,those networks are linked to nepotism,rent-seeking,corruption and market-segmentation. However,recent Development Economics views them as a supplement for market imperfection:People connected with strong ties can share recruiting information,and multilateral reputation can make commitments credible,which alleviates market failure such as adverse selection,moral hazard and incomplete contract.Zuo and Li(2017)estimated the city-level index of community networks,and examined its effect on firms’ TFP with various degrees of marketization,which to some extent involve resource misallocation within cities. However,we find that resource misallocation within cities may be more serious than inter-cities by decomposing all the variance of industry-level TFPR. And this paper gives it an explanation from the combination of community networks and marketization. The research shows that community networks mitigate resource misallocation in areas with low degree of marketization. However,in areas with high degree of marketization,community networks reduce the efficiency of resource allocation. By substituting the marketization index for its sub-indexes,the coefficient estimation is consistent with the theoretical hypothesis;and the heterogeneity test shows that these effects are more significant in industries with high barriers to entry and exit,capital-intensive industries and technology-intensive industries.The possible contributions of this paper are as follows:(1)The combination of community networks and marketization provides a new explanation for resource misallocation within cities in China.(2)New Institutional Economics emphasizes the interaction and common role of formal and informal institutions in the process of economic transformation and development. This paper studies the problem of resource misallocation in China from this perspective,which not only enriches the literature of resource misallocation,but also provides new evidence for the theory of Institutional Economics and Development Economics.