《劳动合同法》、企业边界与新劳动力二元市场

Labor Contract Law,Enterprise Boundary and New Labor Dual Market

中国2008年施行的《劳动合同法》在保护劳动者权益、规范企业劳动合同签订的同时,也促发了“劳务派遣”“劳务外包”等用工形式在中国的蓬勃发展,《劳动合同法》使中国形成了以不同合约结构为特征的新劳动力市场二元结构,从而对中国企业的生产经营效率造成异质性的影响。基于企业边界理论,可得出企业之所以更多采用“劳务派遣”“劳务外包”等用工形式,是进行边界调整,追求在法律约束下更高生产经营效率的目标使然。但契约密集度不同的企业在调整企业边界过程中所面临的困难不同,从而导致其生产经营效率受《劳动合同法》的冲击也不相同。通过使用双重差分方法可对这一理论分析结论进行验证,结果发现:《劳动合同法》对高契约密集度企业的生产效率具有更大的负向冲击,这一效应对民营企业和法律执行效率较高地区的企业更加显著。研究发现,《劳动合同法》导致低契约密集度企业在员工数量上出现相对下降趋势,其人均固定资本量则出现了相对上升趋势。这些结论在排除金融危机、资本替代劳动等因素之后依然显著。

The new Labor Contract Law in China,which came into force in 2008,aims to protect the interests of workers and regulates the contracts between workers and firms.However,it also induces firms to intensively use employment forms like"labor dispatching"and"labor outsourcing"to mitigate additional costs imposed by the law.The law has led to the formation of a new dual structure of labor market in China characterized by diferent contractual arrangements,thus exerting heterogeneous impacts on the production efficiency of Chinese firms.Based on the theory of firm boundary,firms are adjusting their boundary when they increasingly use"labor dispatching"or"labor outsourcing".In this paper,we test whether this adjustment of firm boundary affects firm productivity.Using a difference-in-differences(DID)design,we find that the Labor Contract Law has a greater negative impact on the productivity of firms with higher contract intensity(Nunn,2007)as it is harder for these firms to adjust their boundary.This effect is more pronounced for private firms and firms in regions with more efficient law enforcement.In addition,we find that the Labor Contract Law decreases the number of employees and increases the capital intensity of firms with low contract intensity.These findings remain robust after controlling for factors like the 2008 financial crisis.