题目：Globalization, Trade & Wages: What Does History tell us about China? with Kris Mitchener

主讲：颜色，北大光华管理学院助理教授

Yan Se, Guanhua School of Management, Peking University

时间：2008年11月24日（周一）下午4:00—5:30

4:00-5:30pm, Nov 24(Monday), 2008

地点：半岛·体育bob官方网站614会议室

摘要：One of the most contentious issues with respect to the global growth in trade is its effects on wages, particularly for developing countries. During the first three decades of the twentieth century, China experienced a tremendous growth in foreign trade. In this paper, we marshal new data on the factor content of Chinese trade to show that China’s export boom was characterized by a rapid expansion in the production and sale of unskilled-intensive products to the rest of the world. Employing unit value data from Chinese trade statistics, we show that the prices of its key exports rose rapidly during the first three decades of the twentieth century. Using new data on wages for unskilled and skilled workers, we show that, as a result of China’s trade boom, the skill premium flattened out in the 1910s and then fell by 8 percent between 1928 and 1928. Our results suggest that sustained trade booms in developing countries can significantly impact wages.