In this seminar Anpeng Li will provide an overview of his recent paper, Labour Market Flexibility and Productivity.

The paper builds a structural model to evaluate the role of labour market flexibility in determining the aggregate productivity. When the labour market is inflexible, firms cannot promptly adjust their labour as a response of shocks. The frictional resource adjustment reduces the aggregate productivity and output. The author calibrates the model based on Chinese firm-level data. Quantitative analysis shows a fairly large impact through this channel.

Anpeng Li is a third year PhD candidate at the Research School of Economics at ANU. His current research mainly focuses on development economics and labour economics. He is particularly interested in Chinese issues.

The CAMA Macroeconomics Brown Bag Seminars offer CAMA speakers, in particular PhD students, an opportunity to present their work in progress in front of their peers, and reputable visitors to showcase their work.