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Exploiting or Augmenting Labor?

delete2026-03-01
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PRE
AI
M
Michaël Rubens *
Y
Yingjie Wu
X
Xu, Mingzhi (Jimmy)
DOI:10.1257/aeri.20240570delete
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Abstract

Abstract

En 中文
We show that existing production approaches to markdown estimation do not separately identify factor price markdowns from factor-augmenting productivity levels. We propose a method to overcome this challenge and apply it to study the effects of ownership liberalization in Chinese nonferrous metal industries. We find that private firms have much higher labor-augmenting productivity levels than state-owned enterprises (SOEs). However, we also find that private firms exert higher monopsony power over their workers than SOEs, although this only holds for domestically owned firms. This suggests that privatization policies imply a trade-off between increased productivity and monopsony power.
Keywords:
PRODUCTIVITY
TECHNOLOGY
MARKUPS
TRADE

Journal

A
American Economic Review-Insights
IF:
6.7
Papers:
16
Citations:
0

Organization

University of California System cover
University of California System
Scholars:
37.5W
Papers: 33.7W
Citations: 6.6K
P
peking university
Scholars:
11.7W
Papers: 8.7W
Citations: 146