Input Trade Liberalization and Firm Labor Market Power in China

Document Type

Other

Role

Author

Published In

VoxChina: A Bridge on Economic Issues between China and the World

Publication Date

7-30-2025

Abstract

More trade, more jobs? Or fewer? China’s accession to the WTO has catalyzed a rich research agenda on the labor market consequences of trade liberalization. Departing from the assumptions of perfectly competitive labor markets, we ask whether Chinese firms exercised more or less labor market power when input tariffs fell with China’s WTO accession? We show that input trade liberalization reduced labor monopsony power in China, especially for skill-intensive firms and in markets with more labor supply growth.

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