Breaking the iron rice bowl: Evidence of precautionary savings from the chinese state-owned enterprises reform

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: He, Hui; Huang, Feng; Liu, Zheng; Zhu, Dongming
• 署名单位: International Monetary Fund; Shanghai University of Finance & Economics; Shanghai University of Finance & Economics; Federal Reserve System - USA; Federal Reserve Bank - San Francisco; Shanghai Jiao Tong University
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF MONETARY ECONOMICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0304-3932
• DOI: 10.1016/j.jmoneco.2017.12.002
• 发表日期: 2018
• 页码: 94-113
• 关键词: precautionary savings; China's SOE reform; natural experiment; Self-selection bias; Difference-in-differences methods

摘要

China's large-scale reform of state-owned enterprises (SOE) in the late 1990s provides a natural experiment for estimating precautionary savings. Before the reform, SOE workers enjoyed similar job security as government employees. The reform caused massive SOE layoffs, but government employees kept their iron rice bowl. The changes in the relative unemployment risks for SOE workers provide a clean identification of income uncertainty. With self-selection biases mitigated by focusing on government assigned jobs, precautionary savings account for about 40 percent of SOE households' wealth accumulation. Moreover, demographic groups more vulnerable to the reform also accumulated more precautionary wealth. (C) 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.