| Economic growth and balanced distribution have traditionally been social contradictions that must be properly dealt with in the process of economic development in all countries,and the incompatibility of the dynamic evolution process between the two has become an important factor in intensifying domestic contradictions and exacerbating international tensions.Entering a new era of socialism,China’s main social contradiction has undergone a fundamental change,and the contradiction between the people’s increasing need for a better life and unbalanced and insufficient development has put forward more urgent requirements for coordinating the contradiction between economic growth and balanced distribution.Since the reform and opening up,China has been steadily pushing forward the development of poverty alleviation.In 2020,China’s cause of poverty eradication has achieved world-renowned results,eliminating absolute poverty and regional overall poverty,and the task of poverty eradication in the new era has been completed as scheduled.In 2021,at the intersection of the two "100-year goals",China has built a moderately prosperous society,historically solved the problem of absolute poverty,and ushered in a new journey of solidly promoting common prosperity.According to the data of the National Bureau of Statistics,from 2000 to 2019,the trend of the Gini coefficient of per capita disposable income of Chinese residents shows an obvious "inverted U"trend;① while the average tariff level of China has gradually decreased from 17.3%before the WTO accession to 9.8%in 2007,and further decreased to 7.5%in 2019 after maintaining stability for a long time.②The difference in time-varying trends between the Gini coefficient of per capita disposable income and the average tariff provides a realistic basis for the study in this paper.Along with the major adjustment of China’s economic development strategy,promoting the free flow of various factors across the country has become an urgent need to build a new pattern of domestic and international dual-cycle economic development.In this context,it is important to study the policy significance of guiding the free movement of labor under trade liberalization to narrow the income gap and promote the goal of common prosperity.The idea of this paper is to construct a circular cumulative propulsion mechanism between trade liberalization,intergenerational occupational upward mobility,labor mobility,firm exports,and income distribution equilibrium.The increase in the level of trade liberalization increases the opportunities for individuals to achieve intergenerational career leap,thus increasing the level of intergenerational occupational upward mobility in their regions;the level of intergenerational occupational upward mobility in regions further influences the migration decision of labor force,and cities with high level of intergenerational flow occupational upward mobility will form a stronger agglomeration effect on labor force;the agglomeration of labor to cities has a "inverted U" growth effect on inflowing firms.The concentration of labor in cities has an "inverted U" shaped growth effect on incoming firms and further enhances trade liberalization through export expansion.Under this circular mechanism,the simultaneous promotion of economic growth and reform of the distribution system will narrow the regional income disparity,thus realizing the free movement of labor under trade liberalization to achieve balanced income distribution.Based on the research idea of this paper,the author argues from three levels:normative research,theoretical research,and empirical research.Normative study:Based on the four dimensions of trade liberalization,intergenerational occupational upward mobility,labor mobility and corporate export,we review the relevant literature on the relationship between the economic growth and balanced distribution;summarize the existing research results and development frontiers;link the three dimensions of trade liberalization,labor mobility and income equilibrium;clarify the relevant concepts and definitions;summarize and categorize the differences and opinion camps of the existing research results.In addition,by reviewing the existing research results and combining them with China’s basic national conditions,we forecast the trend of income disparity in China under trade liberalization,the effectiveness of income disparity regulation of mobile labor and its realization mechanism.Theoretical study:the theoretical models in Chapters 3 to 6 of this paper are reviewed and derived based on the possible causal relationships between trade liberalization,intergenerational occupational upward mobility,labor mobility,and firm exports,respectively.In the study of trade liberalization and intergenerational occupational upward mobility,based on the setting of the existing model,the fixed cost of firm innovation in the original model and the homogeneity assumption of heterogeneous firms on the estimated probability of entry of foreign firms are removed,which theoretically confirms the driving effect of trade liberalization on intergenerational occupational upward mobility;In the process of demonstrating the causal relationship between mobile labor and firm exports,the "inverted U-shaped"relationship between mobile labor and firm exports is demonstrated based on the Cobb Douglas production function and the four-sector national income kernel equation in the framework of the Solow model.In addition,reviewing the classical theoretical models,such as model of migration and model of intergenerational skill mobility,it is confirmed that the level of regional intergenerational occupational mobility makes an important consideration in the labor migration decision process;drawing on the existing theoretical models to find the theoretical underpinnings for driving income equilibrium through the free movement of labor under trade liberalization.Empirical study:the empirical study of this paper covers four interrelated components.First of all,based on the 2005 and 2015 China Census 1%Sample Survey data,the estimation methods of Logit,Multinomial Logit,Ⅳ-Probit,PSW,and robust standard errors using clustering to the city level are used.The regression results confirm that increasing the level of trade liberalization increases the overall intergenerational occupational mobility of society and enhances upward intergenerational occupational mobility.Upward intergenerational occupational mobility in industrial sectors is mainly achieved through high-skill job creation and increasing the total factor productivity of firms;in non-industrial sectors,increasing the productivity of primary industries and strengthening the degree of backward inter-industry linkages can enhance the likelihood of upward intergenerational occupational mobility.Overall,improving the level and efficiency of foreign capital utilization and enhancing intergenerational upward mobility in education can enhance overall social mobility.Secondly,based on the 1%sample survey data of the 2005 and 2015 national censuses,we analyze the impact of spatial heterogeneity of intergenerational occupational mobility levels on labor migration behavior by accounting for urban intergenerational occupational upward mobility indices.The empirical results show that cities with higher levels of intergenerational occupational upward mobility are more attractive to migrant labor by virtue of their higher overall productivity and marginal expected wage levels of educational inputs,i.e.,they generate an"agglomeration effect" on migrant labor.The "agglomeration effect" has significant heterogeneity:from the perspective of the "push" of the domicile city,cities with high levels of intergenerational occupational upward mobility reduce the willingness of domiciled labor to move out;from the perspective of the "pull" of the destination city,cities with high levels of intergenerational occupational upward mobility reduce the willingness of domiciled labor to move out.From the perspective of "pull" of destination cities,cities with high intergenerational occupational upward mobility can attract more labor from cities with low intergenerational occupational upward mobility.And as the level of intergenerational occupational upward mobility increases in cities,the willingness to move out of rural households with low education level labor force decreases significantly;while rural households with high education level labor force have higher willingness to move out.The above findings remain robust under various robustness and endogeneity tests such as Ⅳ-Probit,Ⅳ,and heteroskedasticity Ⅳ.Labor migration follows the general pattern of moving from cities with low intergenerational occupational upward mobility levels to cities with high intergenerational occupational upward mobility levels.Thirdly,based on the China Customs database,the Mobile Population Dynamics Survey database(2011-2014),and provincial statistical yearbooks for each year,the regression method using high-dimensional fixed effects as well as Ⅳ instrumental variables found that the inflow of labor lowered the monthly minimum wage in cities and increased the share of industry research employees,thus driving the inflowing firms’ export growth.The growth effect of mobile labor on firms’ exports shows an"inverted U" pattern in the long run.The heterogeneity analysis reveals that there is significant spatial heterogeneity in the growth effect of mobile labor force on enterprise exports,specifically:non-eastern regions are higher than eastern regions;lower-order cities are higher than higher-order cities.This finding remains robust under various robustness tests including variable replacement,data replacement,and indicator accounting method replacement.Fourth,the "inverted U" shape of the change in the Gini coefficient under trade liberalization is examined empirically from two perspectives:the size of mobile labor force and trade openness,based on the 2005 national census 1%sample survey data(cross-sectional data)and the panel data constructed from the census data of 2005,2010 and 2015.The results of the regressions show that:the Gini coefficient changes in China under trade liberalization.The regression results show that:trade liberalization increases intra-city income disparity in the short run,but reduces intra-city income disparity in the long run;mobile labor has a significant moderating effect on the income disparity caused by increased trade openness,and there is no significant non-linear relationship between the share of mobile labor and the urban Gini coefficient.In other words,directing the free movement of labor can alleviate the problem of widening income gap in the short run caused by the increased level of trade liberalization,thus achieving common prosperity in the long run possibly.In the mechanism testing process,the level of intergenerational urban occupational upward mobility and the minimum wage level,which affect labor migration behavior,are controlled separately,and it is found that increasing the level of trade liberalization enhances the level of intergenerational occupational upward mobility.An increase in the level of intergenerational occupational upward mobility in cities expands the size of urban labor inflows,which in turn increases urban productivity,which in turn enhances firm exports,and in turn increases the level of trade liberalization,forming a closed loop of cumulative promotion.Based on the interaction mechanism between trade liberalization,intergenerational occupational upward mobility,labor mobility,corporate export and income equilibrium as confirmed by empirical analysis,this paper puts forward the following policy recommendations:(1)deepen the reform of the household registration system and break the institutional mechanism that hinders labor mobility;(2)implement the employment priority policy and promote the optimal allocation of labor across regions;(3)increase the construction of social security system to meet the basic needs of the mobile population;(4)further expand the opening up to the outside world based on the domestic circulation;(5)implement the innovation-driven development strategy to enhance the innovation and entrepreneurial vitality of the whole society;(6)promote high-quality economic development to enhance social mobility;(7)accelerate the modernization of education to achieve educational equity;(8)increase the policy tilt to the western region and remote areas to promote coordinated regional development;(9)promote the reform of the distribution system and accelerate the process of achieving balanced income. |
PDF Full Text Request