“凿空之旅”泽万民:“一带一路”对外直接投资如何提高劳动收入份额

文章基于2003-2016年中国上市公司数据,采用倾向得分匹配和双重差分法（PSM-DID）探讨"一带一路"沿线对外直接投资与母国劳动收入份额之间的因果关系。实证发现,企业对外直接投资长期内整体上提高了职工的工资份额。考虑企业所处地区、行业和劳动者的异质性后,结论仍然稳健。具体而言,企业通过对外直接投资的逆向技术溢出提高了创新能力、研发投入和全要素生产率,从而提高了母国职工工资份额。此外,企业的技术进步具有高技能劳动力的偏向性,母国高技能劳动者的工资份额在企业对外直接投资中得以显著提升,但对于母国低技能劳动者的工资份额影响不显著。文章研究发现"一带一路"沿线对外直接投资对母国劳动收入份额的影响机制和具体效应提供了微观证据。

Outward FDI and Labor Income Share under “the Belt and Road”

"the Belt and Road Initiative" provides new perspectives and opportunities for outward foreign direct investments (OFDI, Outward Foreign Direct Investment) for China's companies, which is gaining massive expansion recently. From the micro-enterprise perspective, enterprises that undertake OFDI may have strength in optimizing the allocation of resources and solving the problem of excess capacity through transferring production, thereby giving impetus to industrial transformation and upgrading. In this case, OFDI may lead to a reduction in domestic employment and a fall in the labor income share, which has the potential to threaten industrial development and individual wellbeing. On the other hand, enterprises may involve the mechanisms by which firms can not only make use of complementary advantages, but also have access to new resources, new technologies and promote their productivity and increase company strength through learning effects or inverse technology spillover effects. In the circumstances, OFDI may be beneficial for employees on the other side. Therefore, the relationship between OFDI and domestic firm-level labor income share is mixed and ambiguous. Based on the China's listed company in stock market from 2003-2016, this paper analyzes the causal relationship between OFDI alongside "the Belt and Road" and domestic firm-level labor income share using propensity score matching and difference-in-differences methods. We estimated the extent to which OFDI contributes to the changes in domestic firm-level labor income share, focusing on the heterogeneous effects across companies, industries and employees. The results show that OFDI significantly increases domestic labor share and has a positive effect in the long run. Furthermore, distinguishing the heterogeneity of companies and employees, the empirical results remain the same in general. The positive effects are more pronounced for private firms without state ownership, firms with higher productivity and firms located in eastern developed regions or western industrial area. And such gains are also higher for firms in technology-intensive industries or hyper-competitive industries. Additionally, the results estimated by generalized quantile regression show that skill-biased technological change exists in domestic companies. The OFDI has positive impact on domestic labor share of skilled employees and no significant effect on unskilled employees. Moreover, we shed light on the mechanisms through which OFDI affects firms' income share. Specifically, the reverse technology spillover effect of OFDI promotes the innovation ability, R&D investment and total factor productivity for domestic companies so that the labor income share is increased. This mechanism is validated by mediation test. To conclude, this paper provides evidences based on micro-data regarding the relationships between OFDI and domestic labor income share and enriches the related literatures. Our findings also deliver useful implications for the policymakers to promote the labor income share:First, the government should continue to advance OFDI alongside "the Belt and Road" and implement the differential incentive policies in accordance with the characteristics of the enterprises. Second, the government should create an atmosphere of fair competition and encourage enterprises innovation and provide favorable guarantee for innovation. Third, the government should speed up the reform of income distribution and adopt supportive measures to promote opportunities in employment of workers, especially for low-skilled labors at basic grassroots level. Meanwhile, the enterprises should also put more emphasis on the on high-skilled labors in the development of enterprises, which may facilitate the development of macroeconomics and social harmony and stability.