最低工资与进口中间品质量

Minimum Wage and Quality of Imported Intermediate Products

文章以中国2004年实施《最低工资规定》政策作为准自然实验,采用双重差分模型对最低工资政策与进口中间品质量的因果关系进行识别。研究发现:最低工资政策的实施可以显著促进进口中间品的质量升级,该结论在一系列识别检验以及稳健性检验后依然成立;最低工资政策可以通过“相对价格效应”和“优胜劣汰效应”两个渠道提高进口中间品的质量水平;最低工资政策对进口中间品质量的影响效应会受到地区人口禀赋和企业资本劳动比的影响;进一步的研究得出,对于持续进口企业来说,最低工资政策主要影响了企业进口中间品质量变动的组内效应、组间效应和进入效应。文章的结论为中国政府如何将提高进口的“质”与保障民生的政策目标联系起来提供了一定的经验依据。

Taking China’s implementation of “Minimum Wage Regulations” in 2004 as a quasi-natural experiment, this paper uses DID model to identify the causal relationship between the policy of minimum wage and the quality of imported intermediate products. The research shows that: the implementation of minimum wage policy can significantly promote the quality upgrading of imported intermediate products, which is still valid after a series of identification tests and robustness tests;minimum wage policy can improve the quality of imported intermediate products through two channels of “relative price effect” and “effect of survival of the fittest”;the effect of minimum wage policy on the quality of imported intermediate products is affected by the regional population endowment and the capital-labor ratio of the enterprises;further research reveals that for the enterprises with sustainable imports, minimum wage policy mainly affects the intra-group effect, intergroup effect and entry effect of quality change of imported intermediate products. The conclusion of this paper provides a certain empirical basis for the Chinese government to link the improvement of “quality” of imported intermediate products with the policy goal of ensuring people’s livelihood.