Import Competition, Formalization, and the Role of Contract Labor
利用中国进口带来的外生变化，发现进口竞争提高了印度正规制造业的就业份额和全要素生产率，其中合同工的使用是关键机制。
Abstract Does higher import competition increase formalization and aggregate productivity? Exploiting plausibly exogenous variation from Chinese imports, we provide empirical causal evidence that higher imports increases the share of formal manufacturing enterprise employment in India. This formal share increase is due to both the rise in formal-enterprise employment driven by high-productivity firms, and a fall in informal-enterprise employment. The labor reallocation is enabled by the formal firms’ hiring of contract workers, who do not carry stringent firing costs. Overall, Chinese import competition increased formal-sector employment share by 3.7 percentage points, and aggregate labor productivity by 2.87 percent, between the years 2000–2001 and 2005–2006.