报告人：李泽鑫中国人民大学国家发展与战略研究院博士后研究员

报告题目：To wheel to deal: The unintended societal outcomes of labour cost shocks

报告时间：1月3日下午2:00

报告直播：腾讯会议（会议号：468-728-514）

主办单位：统计交叉科学研究中心

协办单位：科研处、金莎app官网

报告摘要：Firms respond to labour cost shocks through capital investment, employee layoffs, and pricing strategy. In this study, we find a speculative cost-shifting strategy through increased environmental pollution that firms have employed to deal with rising labour costs. Using the geographical discontinuity of China’s Minimum Wage Policy at county boundaries for identification, we find a 10% increase in the minimum wage leads to an average of 3.48-3.58% increase in affected firms’ SO2 emissions. Considering that the average annual growth rate in China is 12.23%, the societal impact of the Minimum Wage Policy cannot be ignored. To mitigate potential endogeneity concerns, we design quasi-natural experiments such as administrative boundary adjustments and downward changes in the minimum wage. The results remain robust to these endogeneity analyses and a battery of robustness checks. Further analysis shows that the increased pollutions in response to labour cost shocks are mainly through prolonging production hours, increasing employee competition, and crowding out green investments. Our results also suggest that stringent environmental regulation, raised public environmental awareness, stable economic policy environment, enhanced labour protection, reduced financial pressure, and increased trade credit are possible moderation strategies to alleviate the conflict between low-income labour protection and undesired environmental pressure. Last but important, although firms can respond to labour cost shocks by increasing pollution levels in the short term, this is detrimental to their long-term competitiveness and sustainable development.

报告人简介：李泽鑫，中国人民大学国家发展与战略研究院博士后研究员，主要研究方向为国际贸易、环境经济、社会经济统计等。在《经济评论》、《国际贸易问题》、《上海财经大学学报》等核心期刊发表论文5篇；作为主要成员参与国家社会科学基金重大项目、国家社会科学基金一般项目、省部级和地方基金项目等课题10余项。

附中心简介：公司统计交叉科学研究中心（ResearchCenterforStatisticsandInterdisciplinarySciences，简称RCSIS）致力于统计学科与相关学科的交叉融合，旨在通过发挥多学科交叉和人才聚集优势，打造面向国际、国内一流的统计学多学科交叉和学术前沿研究平台。依据中心发展规划，RCSIS于2023年计划举办10场学术讲座。