题目：Multi-Product Firms and Human Capital: Evidence from China’s Firm-Level Data

报告人：王文雅  助理教授 上海财经大学 

主持人：金樟峰  博士后  浙江大学经济学院

时间：2019年5月10日   星期五    12:00-13:30

地点：浙江大学玉泉校区经济学院418室  

Abstract:

This paper studies the nexus between human capital and firms’ number of products to account for a country’s average firm size and GDP per capita. We base our analysis in China’s NBS firm-level data that uniquely combines product information and workers’ education information. We first document that in China, multi-product firms are more human capital intensive than single-product ones. But they are much fewer in numbers and smaller in market share compared to their U.S. counterparts. We then find supportive evidences on two channels that connects human capital to product scopes: (i) better understandings of both positive and negative demand shocks for each product market; (ii) higher R&D and less span-of-control in product numbers. We incorporate these mechanisms into the multi-product model of Bernard, Redding and Schott (2010). We aim to quantify the increases of average firm sizes and GDP per capita if: (i) the population aged 25-64 with undergraduate diplomas increase from 9.68% in 2010 in China to the OECD average 36%; (ii) human capital misallocation is eliminated in China. 

Introduction:

Wenya Wang (王文雅) currently works at School of Finance, Shanghai University of Finance and Economics as an Assistant Professor. Wenya received her PhD in Economics from University of Western Ontario, Canada, in 2017. Her research interests lie in Macroeconomics, Firm Dynamics and Chinese Economy. Her current work attempts to understand the interaction between financial frictions and intermediate goods usage, the product dynamics in China’s firm-level data and how it connects to theories of multi-product, R&D, trade, and economic growth.

CRPE秘书处
2019-4-29