Topic：Induced Corporate Innovations: Evidence from China's Gender Imbalance

时间：周四早上10:30-12:00

地点：512会议室

主讲：谭之博，中心博士毕业生，目前在复旦大学工作。

Zhibo Tan received his Ph.D. from National School of Development, Peking University. He has published in Journal of International Money and Finance, Journal of Policy Modeling, Economic Research Journal, Journal of World Economy, Journal of Financial Research, China Economic Quarterly and so on. He received the Gregory Chow best paper award of Chinese Economists Society in 2013 and the best paper award of Journal of Financial Research in 2012. He was selected to attend the 5th Nobel Laureates Meetings in Economic Science in Lindau.

 Abstract: Relative scarcity in a production factor will drive firms to invest more in technology to substitute the increasingly more expensive factor according to the induced innovation theory. However, it is of a great challenge to test the theory empirically because factor prices are often endogenously determined. In this paper, we use imbalanced sex ratios across regions in China as a source of identification strategy to test the induced innovation hypothesis based on the matched dataset of Annual Survey of Chinese Manufacturing Firms and the database of approved patents. Facing rising sex ratios (more men relative to women), female-intensive industries have greater problems finding female workers than their male-intensive counterparts. Our empirical analyses show that the scarcity in female workers has spurred female-intensive firms to innovate more so as to substitute the increasingly more expensive female workers.