IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/iza/izadps/dp18994.html

Employer Concentration and Minimum-Wage Employment Effects: Evidence from China's Transition

Author

Listed:
  • Dai, Li

    (Hunan University)

  • Martins, Pedro

    (Universidade Nova de Lisboa)

  • Duan, Wenjing

    (Hunan University)

Abstract

How do local labour markets shape the employment effects of minimum wages? We evaluate this question using comprehensive manufacturing firm data and over 28,000 hand-collected county-level minimum wages during China's market transition (1998-2007). We find that, consistently with monopsony models, the employment response to higher minimum-wage exposure becomes less negative as local employer concentration increases, with positive point estimates arising in highly concentrated markets in some specifications, particularly among domestic private firms. Higher minimum-wage exposure may also be associated with lower reported training expenditure and greater firm exit. Our findings indicate that the employment effects of minimum wages can depend critically on local market structures, highlighting the importance of geographical and institutional heterogeneity when assessing labour regulation in transitioning economies.

Suggested Citation

  • Dai, Li & Martins, Pedro & Duan, Wenjing, 2026. "Employer Concentration and Minimum-Wage Employment Effects: Evidence from China's Transition," IZA Discussion Papers 18994, IZA Network @ LISER.
    • Handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp18994
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://docs.iza.org/dp18994.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • J31 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs - - - Wage Level and Structure; Wage Differentials
    • J38 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs - - - Public Policy
    • J42 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Particular Labor Markets - - - Monopsony; Segmented Labor Markets

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp18994. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Mark Fallak (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/izaaalu.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.