Productivity As If Space Mattered: An Application to Factor Markets Across China

Wenya Cheng, John Morrow and Kitjawat Tacharoen

CEP Discussion Papers from Centre for Economic Performance, LSE

Abstract: Optimal production decisions depend on local market characteristics. This paper develops a model to explain firm labor demand and firm density across regions. Firms vary in their technology to combine imperfectly substitutable worker types, and locate across regions with distinct distributions of workers and wages. Firm technologies which best match regional labor markets explain both productivity differences and firm density. Estimating structural model parameters is simple and relies on a two stage OLS procedure. The first stage estimates local market conditions using firm employment and regional data, while the second incorporates regional costs into production function estimation. The method is applied to Chinese manufacturing, population census and geographic data to estimate local market costs and production technologies. In line with the model, we find that labor markets which provide cost advantages explain substantial differences in firm productivity. Furthermore, regions which have lower optimal hiring costs attract more firms per capita.

Keywords: Structural estimation; productivity; firm location; China (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D22 D24 J24 J30 O15 R11 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2012-12
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-bec, nep-cna, nep-eff, nep-geo, nep-lab, nep-tra and nep-ure
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (7)

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https://cep.lse.ac.uk/pubs/download/dp1181.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Working Paper: Productivity as if Space Mattered: An Application to Factor Markets Across China (2013)
Working Paper: Productivity As If Space Mattered: An Application to Factor Markets Across China (2013)
Working Paper: Productivity As If Space Mattered: An Application to Factor Markets Across China (2013)
Working Paper: Productivity as if space mattered: an application to factor markets across China (2012)
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