ReportTitle:The Effects of Three Gorges Dam Town Resettlement on Industrial Productivity
Reporter(Institution):Zhang Ning(Jinan University)
Time:03:00.pm,11th May, 2016
Location:B-318, Building of Economics & Management, JiulonghuCampus
Abstract:
The effect of dam town resettlement on firm’s activities is ambiguous. This paper estimates the casual effect of China’s Three Gorges Dam (TGD) town resettlement on local industrial productivity by combingDifference-in-Differences andBoundary Discontinuitytechniques in a quasi-nature experiment design. Measures of plant-level industrial productivity have been obtained from the Annual Industrial Firm Datasets from 1998 to 2007. Industrial firms in flooded counties were subject to substantial funds for resettlement compared to those in adjacent non-flooded counties. The results show that the TGD town resettlement has a positive effect on both total factor productivity and labor productivity. The resulting estimates further suggest the evidence of heterogeneous productivity effects on dispersal of plants in flooded counties that have been relocated into the designated areas relative to displaced plants that have been moved to other places. The analysis also finds that firm survivors, firm births and deaths have played a significant role in explaining the effects of the TGD town resettlement. Additional results quantify evidence of distributive effects on employment, plant counts, wage and other industrial activity.