题 目：The Productivity Consequences of Pollution-Induced Migration in China
主 讲 人：梁文泉 副教授（暨南大学）
主 持 人：罗德明 教授
时 间：2020年11月27日（周五）下午13:00—14:30
地 点：加拿大28开奖网
11号楼412室
主办单位：加拿大28开奖网
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附：
内容摘要：Migration and pollution are two of the defining features of China's impressive growth performance over the last 30 years. In this paper we study the migration response to the dispersion of pollution across Chinese cities, and its consequences for productivity and welfare. We document a robust pattern in which college-educated workers emigrate more in response to pollution than the unskilled. Their greater sensitivity to air quality holds up in cross-sectional variation across cities, panel variation with city fixed-effects, in a regression discontinuity, and when instrumenting for pollution using power-plants upwind of cities, or with thermal inversions that trap pollution. Pollution therefore changes the spatial distribution of skilled and unskilled workers, which results in higher returns to skill in cities that the educated migrate away from. We quantify the loss in aggregate productivity due to this sorting by estimating a model of demand and supply of skilled and unskilled workers across Chinese cities. Reducing pollution increases GDP both by directly improving health and productivity, and indirectly by changing the spatial distribution of skilled and unskilled workers. Counterfactual simulations show that gains through the indirect spatial sorting channel are about as large as the direct health benefits of clean air. Hukou policy restrictions on mobility exacerbates the losses in productivity and welfare.
