The role of skilled labor pool in driving firms to agglomerate: an empirical study on China's policy experiment

Wang, Miao

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https://hdl.handle.net/2142/89109 Copy

Description

Title

The role of skilled labor pool in driving firms to agglomerate: an empirical study on China's policy experiment

Author(s)

Wang, Miao

Issue Date

2015-11-12

Director of Research (if dissertation) or Advisor (if thesis)

Goldsmith, Peter D.

Doctoral Committee Chair(s)

Goldsmith, Peter D.

Committee Member(s)

• Baylis, Kathy
• Hewings, Geoffrey J.D.
• Kirwan, Barret E.

Department of Study

Agricultural & Consumer Economics

Discipline

Agricultural & Consumer Economics

Degree Granting Institution

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Degree Name

Ph.D.

Degree Level

Dissertation

Keyword(s)

• Agglomeration
• Natural experiment

Abstract

This study aims to empirically identify agglomeration forces operating through skilled labor mobility. Specifically, this research uses a natural experiment in China regarding to skilled labor migration liberalization to examine the impact of skilled labor pool and knowledge availability on China’s industrial agglomeration. The current project centers on three progressive chapters on how skilled labor reallocation reshapes the economic geography in China. Chapter 2 estimates the response of the high-tech industrial agglomeration to high-educated/high-skilled labor migration liberalization. It finds liberalizing interregional skilled labor mobility facilitates high-tech industrial agglomeration. Chapter 3 uses a narrowly controlled dataset to construct a case study on the China’s Food Processing industry. The research question posed is whether Food Processing firms co-locate to access talent pool. It finds evidence that the skilled labor pool affected the location decision of Food Processing firms. The result supports recent literature that the food and agribusiness sector is increasingly dependent on knowledge and high technology. Chapter 4 models and tests the knowledge effect through which a skilled labor policy increases industrial agglomeration. It analyzes relationship between a sector’s heterogeneity level and knowledge efficacy. It finds that heterogeneity alone does not maximize knowledge efficacy.

Graduation Semester

2015-12

Type of Resource

text

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http://hdl.handle.net/2142/89109

Copyright and License Information

Copyright 2015 Miao Wang

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