Rising Wages: Has China Lost Its Global Labor Advantage?
We document dramatically rising wages in China for the period 1978-2007 based on multiple sources of aggregate statistics. Although real wages increased seven-fold during the period, growth was uneven across ownership categories, industries, and regions. In the last decade, wages in state-owned enterprises increased rapidly and wage disparities between those in skill-intensive and labor-intensive industries have widened. Comparisons of international data show that China’s manufacturing wage has already converged with that of emerging markets in Asia, but China still enjoys enormous labor cost advantages over neighboring developed economies. Our analysis suggests that China’s wage growth will stabilize to a moderate pace in the near future.
工資上漲：中國是否已失去廉價勞動力優勢？
我們利用宏觀經濟數據描述中國在1978至2007年間勞動工資迅速上漲的狀況。雖然實際工資上漲了七倍，但是增幅在跨所有制形式、行業和區域間的分佈不均衡。過去十年，國有企業的工資水平迅速上升，高與低敎育水平工人的收入差距擴大了。我們通過跨國數據發現，中國製造業的工資水平已趨近亞洲其他新興國家，但遠低於鄰近的發達國家。我們的分析表明，中國的工資水平將在近期轉入緩步上升的狀態。
