Research Interests 研究兴趣
Labor Economics, Population Economics, Program Evaluation, Applied Micro-econometrics, Subjective Well-being
劳动经济学,人口经济学,政策效果评估,应用微观计量经济学,主观福利研究
Selected Articles 已发表的部分论文
Liu, H., Liu, L., Wang, F. (2023). Housing wealth and fertility: evidence from China. Journal of Population Economics, 36, 359–395. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00148-021-00879-6.
Abstract: This study examines how an increase in home value affects fertility decisions of homeowners in China by exploiting regional heterogeneity in housing markets driven by local regulatory and geographic land constraints. In sharp contrast to the literature on developed countries, our instrumental variable results show a negative fertility response to house value growth driven by the recent housing boom in China, where a 100,000-yuan increase in lagged home values—about 43% of the average housing wealth at baseline—results in a 14% decrease in the likelihood of home-owning women giving birth. Further evidence suggests that underdeveloped credit markets may suppress the positive wealth effect of house value growth on childbearing.
Guo, Y., He, A., Wang, F. (2022). Local policy discretion in social welfare: Explaining subnational variations in China's de facto urban poverty line. The China Quarterly, 249, 114-138. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0305741021001168.
Abstract: How do subnational agents exercise policy discretion in the social welfare sphere? To what extent do they do so as a result of various bureaucratic and fiscal incentives? The literature has documented several explanatory frameworks in the context of China that predominantly focus on the realm of developmental policies. Owing to the salient characteristics of the social policy arena, local adaptation of centrally designed policies may operate on distinctive logics. This study synthesizes the recent scholarship on subnational social policymaking and explains the significant interregional disparities in China's de facto urban poverty line – the eligibility standard of the urban minimum livelihood guarantee scheme, or dibao. Five research hypotheses are formulated for empirical examination: fiscal power effect, population effect, fiscal dependency effect, province effect and neighbour effect. Quantitative analysis of provincial-level panel data largely endorses the hypotheses. The remarkable subnational variations in dibao standards are explained by a salient constellation of fiscal and political factors that are embedded within the country's complex intergovernmental relations and fiscal arrangements. Both a race-to-the-top and a race-to-the-bottom may be fostered by distinctive mechanisms. The unique role of provincial governments as intermediary agents within China's political apparatus is illuminated in the social policy arena.
Zhao, L., Wang, F., Zhao, Z. (2021). Trade liberalization and child labor. China Economic Review, 65. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chieco.2020.101575.
Abstract: This paper exploits a quasi-natural experiment – the U.S. granting of Permanent Normal Trade Relations (PNTR) to China after China's accession to the World Trade Organization – to examine whether trade liberalization affects the incidence of child labor. PNTR permanently set U.S. duties on Chinese imports at low Normal Trade Relations (NTR) levels and removed the uncertainty associated with annual renewals of China's NTR status. We find that the PNTR was significantly associated with the rising incidence of child labor in China. A one percentage point reduction in expected export tariffs raises the odds of child labor by a 1.2 percentage point. The effects are greater for girls, older children, rural children, and children with less-educated parents. The effect of trade liberalization on the incidence of child labor, however, tends to weaken in the long run, probably because trade liberalization can induce exporters to upgrade technology and thus have less demand for unskilled workers.
Wang, F., Xia, J., Xu, J. (2020). To upgrade or to relocate? Explaining heterogeneous responses of Chinese light manufacturing firms to rising labor costs. China Economic Review, 60. https://doi.org/10.1016/J.CHIECO.2019.101333.
Abstract: This paper studies the heterogeneous responses of Chinese light manufacturing firms to rising labor costs from the perspective of New Structural Economics. Using the first-hand pilot survey data, we find that rising labor costs have been the number one challenge facing firms, and that despite the dominant strategy of technological upgrading, there is a substantial difference in responses across different firms. In addition, we discover that industrial and firm-specific labor intensity are key determinants of the heterogeneous strategies across firms in response to rising labor costs. We conclude that intrinsically more labor-intensive industries and firms are more likely to choose relocation instead of upgrading as a strategy to cope with the rising labor costs.
Morgan, R., Wang, F. (2019). Well-being in transition: Life satisfaction in urban China from 2002 to 2012. Journal of Happiness Studies, 20(8), 2609–2629. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10902-018-0061-5.
Abstract: The improving strength of the labor market is chiefly responsible for the overall increase in life satisfaction in urban China from 2002 to 2012. This is especially true for the segment of the population most vulnerable to the negative effects of the on-going transition to a free-market based economy—people with less than a college education. Income comparison and habituation effects offset any positive effect of increased personal income during this time. The result is that increases in income are not significantly related to the increase in life satisfaction during this time. In the interest of protecting the life satisfaction of those most vulnerable, attention must be paid to maintaining a strong labor market as internal migration restrictions are loosened and the labor market is further liberalized in China. These findings are based on repeated cross-sectional data spanning from surveys used in the annual economic reports published by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. A modified version of the Oaxaca decomposition method is developed to take advantage of annual data and also control for adaptation to income effects. The change in life satisfaction from 2002 to 2012 is then divided into segments associated with changes in various life domains.
Qin, Y., Wang, F. (2017). Too early or too late: What have we learned from the 30-year two-child policy experiment in Yicheng, China? Demographic Research, 37, 929-956. [Full text / 全文] [N-IUSSP article / N-IUSSP 文章推送]
Abstract:
Background: In January 2016, China ended its 35-year-old one-child policy and replaced it with a nationwide two-child policy. However, it remains unclear whether a two-child policy can effectively increase the fertility level in China.
Objective: We reviewed the 30-year (1985–2015) two-child policy experiment carried out in Yicheng, a county in the Shanxi province of China, to assess the impact of this policy on the crude birth rate, as compared with the one-child policy implemented in most other places in Shanxi.
Methods: We adopted a synthetic control approach. Using this method, we constructed a synthetic county using counties in Shanxi that were subject to the one-child policy. The synthetic county had similar observed characteristics to Yicheng before the launch of Yicheng’s two-child policy experiment in 1985. Therefore, birth rate differences between Yicheng and the synthetic county after 1985 could be attributed only to the two-child policy.
Results: We did not find any short-term impacts of the two-child policy on the Yicheng birth rate prior to the 1990s. We estimated that the two-child policy, in the long run, would lead to a maximum of two more births per 1,000 people every year in Yicheng, compared with similar areas that had a one-child policy.
Conclusions: The two-child policy was not found to boost the birth rate in Yicheng and similar places.
Contribution: The study identified the causal effect of a two-child policy, and was more methodologically reliable than related studies that primarily explored statistical correlations.
Wang, F., Zhao, L.Q., Zhao, Z. (2017). China’s family planning policies and their labor market consequences. Journal of Population Economics, 30(1), 31-68. [Full text / 全文]
Abstract: China initiated its family planning policy in 1962 and its one-child policy in 1980, and it allowed all couples to have two children as of 1 January 2016. This paper systematically examines the labor market consequences of China’s family planning policies. First, we briefly review the historical evolution of China’s family planning policies and the existing literature. Second, we investigate the effects of these policies on the labor market, focusing on the size and quality of the working-age population and its age and gender composition. We give special attention to regional differences in the demographic structure resulting from the interaction of the family planning policies and internal migration. Finally, we discuss ongoing and prospective policy changes and their potential consequences. Although urban areas and coastal provinces have implemented stricter family planning policies, our analysis shows that because of internal migration, the aging problem is more severe in rural areas and in inland provinces. Our simulation results further indicate that the new two-child policy might fall short of pulling China out of its aging situation.
Easterlin, R. A., Morgan, R., Switek, M., Wang, F. (2012). China’s life satisfaction, 1990–2010. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 109(25), 9775-9780. [Full text / 全文]
Abstract: Despite its unprecedented growth in output per capita in the last two decades, China has essentially followed the life satisfaction trajectory of the central and eastern European transition countries—a U-shaped swing and a nil or declining trend. There is no evidence of an increase in life satisfaction of the magnitude that might have been expected to result from the fourfold improvement in the level of per capita consumption that has occurred. As in the European countries, in China the trend and U-shaped pattern appear to be related to a pronounced rise in unemployment followed by a mild decline, and an accompanying dissolution of the social safety net along with growing income inequality. The burden of worsening life satisfaction in China has fallen chiefly on the lowest socioeconomic groups. An initially highly egalitarian distribution of life satisfaction has been replaced by an increasingly unequal one, with decreasing life satisfaction in persons in the bottom third of the income distribution and increasing life satisfaction in those in the top third.
Selected Book Chapters 部分著作或章节
Morgan, R., Wang, F. (2021). ‘Growth and Subjective Well-Being in China’, in Douarin, E., Havrylyshyn, O. (eds.) The Palgrave Handbook of Comparative Economics. Cham: Springer Nature, pp. 635-660.
Easterlin, R. A., Wang, F., Wang, S. (2017). ‘Growth and Happiness in China, 1990-2015’, in Helliwell, J., Layard, R., Sachs, J., De Neve, J., Huang, H., Wang, S. (eds.) World Happiness Report 2017. New York: Sustainable Development Solutions Network, pp. 48-83. [Full text / 全文]
Labor Economics, Population Economics, Program Evaluation, Applied Micro-econometrics, Subjective Well-being
劳动经济学,人口经济学,政策效果评估,应用微观计量经济学,主观福利研究
Selected Articles 已发表的部分论文
Liu, H., Liu, L., Wang, F. (2023). Housing wealth and fertility: evidence from China. Journal of Population Economics, 36, 359–395. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00148-021-00879-6.
Abstract: This study examines how an increase in home value affects fertility decisions of homeowners in China by exploiting regional heterogeneity in housing markets driven by local regulatory and geographic land constraints. In sharp contrast to the literature on developed countries, our instrumental variable results show a negative fertility response to house value growth driven by the recent housing boom in China, where a 100,000-yuan increase in lagged home values—about 43% of the average housing wealth at baseline—results in a 14% decrease in the likelihood of home-owning women giving birth. Further evidence suggests that underdeveloped credit markets may suppress the positive wealth effect of house value growth on childbearing.
Guo, Y., He, A., Wang, F. (2022). Local policy discretion in social welfare: Explaining subnational variations in China's de facto urban poverty line. The China Quarterly, 249, 114-138. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0305741021001168.
Abstract: How do subnational agents exercise policy discretion in the social welfare sphere? To what extent do they do so as a result of various bureaucratic and fiscal incentives? The literature has documented several explanatory frameworks in the context of China that predominantly focus on the realm of developmental policies. Owing to the salient characteristics of the social policy arena, local adaptation of centrally designed policies may operate on distinctive logics. This study synthesizes the recent scholarship on subnational social policymaking and explains the significant interregional disparities in China's de facto urban poverty line – the eligibility standard of the urban minimum livelihood guarantee scheme, or dibao. Five research hypotheses are formulated for empirical examination: fiscal power effect, population effect, fiscal dependency effect, province effect and neighbour effect. Quantitative analysis of provincial-level panel data largely endorses the hypotheses. The remarkable subnational variations in dibao standards are explained by a salient constellation of fiscal and political factors that are embedded within the country's complex intergovernmental relations and fiscal arrangements. Both a race-to-the-top and a race-to-the-bottom may be fostered by distinctive mechanisms. The unique role of provincial governments as intermediary agents within China's political apparatus is illuminated in the social policy arena.
Zhao, L., Wang, F., Zhao, Z. (2021). Trade liberalization and child labor. China Economic Review, 65. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chieco.2020.101575.
Abstract: This paper exploits a quasi-natural experiment – the U.S. granting of Permanent Normal Trade Relations (PNTR) to China after China's accession to the World Trade Organization – to examine whether trade liberalization affects the incidence of child labor. PNTR permanently set U.S. duties on Chinese imports at low Normal Trade Relations (NTR) levels and removed the uncertainty associated with annual renewals of China's NTR status. We find that the PNTR was significantly associated with the rising incidence of child labor in China. A one percentage point reduction in expected export tariffs raises the odds of child labor by a 1.2 percentage point. The effects are greater for girls, older children, rural children, and children with less-educated parents. The effect of trade liberalization on the incidence of child labor, however, tends to weaken in the long run, probably because trade liberalization can induce exporters to upgrade technology and thus have less demand for unskilled workers.
Wang, F., Xia, J., Xu, J. (2020). To upgrade or to relocate? Explaining heterogeneous responses of Chinese light manufacturing firms to rising labor costs. China Economic Review, 60. https://doi.org/10.1016/J.CHIECO.2019.101333.
Abstract: This paper studies the heterogeneous responses of Chinese light manufacturing firms to rising labor costs from the perspective of New Structural Economics. Using the first-hand pilot survey data, we find that rising labor costs have been the number one challenge facing firms, and that despite the dominant strategy of technological upgrading, there is a substantial difference in responses across different firms. In addition, we discover that industrial and firm-specific labor intensity are key determinants of the heterogeneous strategies across firms in response to rising labor costs. We conclude that intrinsically more labor-intensive industries and firms are more likely to choose relocation instead of upgrading as a strategy to cope with the rising labor costs.
Morgan, R., Wang, F. (2019). Well-being in transition: Life satisfaction in urban China from 2002 to 2012. Journal of Happiness Studies, 20(8), 2609–2629. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10902-018-0061-5.
Abstract: The improving strength of the labor market is chiefly responsible for the overall increase in life satisfaction in urban China from 2002 to 2012. This is especially true for the segment of the population most vulnerable to the negative effects of the on-going transition to a free-market based economy—people with less than a college education. Income comparison and habituation effects offset any positive effect of increased personal income during this time. The result is that increases in income are not significantly related to the increase in life satisfaction during this time. In the interest of protecting the life satisfaction of those most vulnerable, attention must be paid to maintaining a strong labor market as internal migration restrictions are loosened and the labor market is further liberalized in China. These findings are based on repeated cross-sectional data spanning from surveys used in the annual economic reports published by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. A modified version of the Oaxaca decomposition method is developed to take advantage of annual data and also control for adaptation to income effects. The change in life satisfaction from 2002 to 2012 is then divided into segments associated with changes in various life domains.
Qin, Y., Wang, F. (2017). Too early or too late: What have we learned from the 30-year two-child policy experiment in Yicheng, China? Demographic Research, 37, 929-956. [Full text / 全文] [N-IUSSP article / N-IUSSP 文章推送]
Abstract:
Background: In January 2016, China ended its 35-year-old one-child policy and replaced it with a nationwide two-child policy. However, it remains unclear whether a two-child policy can effectively increase the fertility level in China.
Objective: We reviewed the 30-year (1985–2015) two-child policy experiment carried out in Yicheng, a county in the Shanxi province of China, to assess the impact of this policy on the crude birth rate, as compared with the one-child policy implemented in most other places in Shanxi.
Methods: We adopted a synthetic control approach. Using this method, we constructed a synthetic county using counties in Shanxi that were subject to the one-child policy. The synthetic county had similar observed characteristics to Yicheng before the launch of Yicheng’s two-child policy experiment in 1985. Therefore, birth rate differences between Yicheng and the synthetic county after 1985 could be attributed only to the two-child policy.
Results: We did not find any short-term impacts of the two-child policy on the Yicheng birth rate prior to the 1990s. We estimated that the two-child policy, in the long run, would lead to a maximum of two more births per 1,000 people every year in Yicheng, compared with similar areas that had a one-child policy.
Conclusions: The two-child policy was not found to boost the birth rate in Yicheng and similar places.
Contribution: The study identified the causal effect of a two-child policy, and was more methodologically reliable than related studies that primarily explored statistical correlations.
Wang, F., Zhao, L.Q., Zhao, Z. (2017). China’s family planning policies and their labor market consequences. Journal of Population Economics, 30(1), 31-68. [Full text / 全文]
Abstract: China initiated its family planning policy in 1962 and its one-child policy in 1980, and it allowed all couples to have two children as of 1 January 2016. This paper systematically examines the labor market consequences of China’s family planning policies. First, we briefly review the historical evolution of China’s family planning policies and the existing literature. Second, we investigate the effects of these policies on the labor market, focusing on the size and quality of the working-age population and its age and gender composition. We give special attention to regional differences in the demographic structure resulting from the interaction of the family planning policies and internal migration. Finally, we discuss ongoing and prospective policy changes and their potential consequences. Although urban areas and coastal provinces have implemented stricter family planning policies, our analysis shows that because of internal migration, the aging problem is more severe in rural areas and in inland provinces. Our simulation results further indicate that the new two-child policy might fall short of pulling China out of its aging situation.
Easterlin, R. A., Morgan, R., Switek, M., Wang, F. (2012). China’s life satisfaction, 1990–2010. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 109(25), 9775-9780. [Full text / 全文]
Abstract: Despite its unprecedented growth in output per capita in the last two decades, China has essentially followed the life satisfaction trajectory of the central and eastern European transition countries—a U-shaped swing and a nil or declining trend. There is no evidence of an increase in life satisfaction of the magnitude that might have been expected to result from the fourfold improvement in the level of per capita consumption that has occurred. As in the European countries, in China the trend and U-shaped pattern appear to be related to a pronounced rise in unemployment followed by a mild decline, and an accompanying dissolution of the social safety net along with growing income inequality. The burden of worsening life satisfaction in China has fallen chiefly on the lowest socioeconomic groups. An initially highly egalitarian distribution of life satisfaction has been replaced by an increasingly unequal one, with decreasing life satisfaction in persons in the bottom third of the income distribution and increasing life satisfaction in those in the top third.
Selected Book Chapters 部分著作或章节
Morgan, R., Wang, F. (2021). ‘Growth and Subjective Well-Being in China’, in Douarin, E., Havrylyshyn, O. (eds.) The Palgrave Handbook of Comparative Economics. Cham: Springer Nature, pp. 635-660.
Easterlin, R. A., Wang, F., Wang, S. (2017). ‘Growth and Happiness in China, 1990-2015’, in Helliwell, J., Layard, R., Sachs, J., De Neve, J., Huang, H., Wang, S. (eds.) World Happiness Report 2017. New York: Sustainable Development Solutions Network, pp. 48-83. [Full text / 全文]