Does female labor scarcity encourage innovation? Evidence from China’s gender imbalance
Facing scarcity of a production factor, a firm can develop technologies to either substitute the scarce factor (price effect) or complement the more abundant factors (market size effect). Whether the market size effect or the price effect dominates largely depends on the elasticity of substitution a...
| Main Authors: | , |
|---|---|
| Format: | Artículo preliminar |
| Language: | Inglés |
| Published: |
International Food Policy Research Institute
2016
|
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://hdl.handle.net/10568/147474 |
| _version_ | 1855516081969430528 |
|---|---|
| author | Tan, Zhibo Zhang, Xiaobo |
| author_browse | Tan, Zhibo Zhang, Xiaobo |
| author_facet | Tan, Zhibo Zhang, Xiaobo |
| author_sort | Tan, Zhibo |
| collection | Repository of Agricultural Research Outputs (CGSpace) |
| description | Facing scarcity of a production factor, a firm can develop technologies to either substitute the scarce factor (price effect) or complement the more abundant factors (market size effect). Whether the market size effect or the price effect dominates largely depends on the elasticity of substitution among factors according to the theory of directed technical change. However, it is a great challenge to empirically test the theory because factor prices are often endogenously determined. In this paper, we use imbalanced sex ratios across Chinese provinces as a source of identification strategy to test how female labor scarcity affects corporate innovation based on the matched dataset of annual surveys of industrial firms in China and the national patent database. In regions with a large male population, female-intensive industries face more serious problems finding female workers than their male-intensive counterparts. We find that such female shortages have spurred firms in female-intensive industries to innovate more. The pattern is much more evident in industries with low substitution between female and male workers than in those with high substitution, consistent with the predictions of directed technical change theory. |
| format | Artículo preliminar |
| id | CGSpace147474 |
| institution | CGIAR Consortium |
| language | Inglés |
| publishDate | 2016 |
| publishDateRange | 2016 |
| publishDateSort | 2016 |
| publisher | International Food Policy Research Institute |
| publisherStr | International Food Policy Research Institute |
| record_format | dspace |
| spelling | CGSpace1474742025-11-06T05:19:02Z Does female labor scarcity encourage innovation? Evidence from China’s gender imbalance Tan, Zhibo Zhang, Xiaobo innovation gender technological changes market structure technology labour elasticities factor analysis markets price volatility prices Facing scarcity of a production factor, a firm can develop technologies to either substitute the scarce factor (price effect) or complement the more abundant factors (market size effect). Whether the market size effect or the price effect dominates largely depends on the elasticity of substitution among factors according to the theory of directed technical change. However, it is a great challenge to empirically test the theory because factor prices are often endogenously determined. In this paper, we use imbalanced sex ratios across Chinese provinces as a source of identification strategy to test how female labor scarcity affects corporate innovation based on the matched dataset of annual surveys of industrial firms in China and the national patent database. In regions with a large male population, female-intensive industries face more serious problems finding female workers than their male-intensive counterparts. We find that such female shortages have spurred firms in female-intensive industries to innovate more. The pattern is much more evident in industries with low substitution between female and male workers than in those with high substitution, consistent with the predictions of directed technical change theory. 2016-07-01 2024-06-21T09:22:55Z 2024-06-21T09:22:55Z Working Paper https://hdl.handle.net/10568/147474 en https://hdl.handle.net/10568/151356 https://hdl.handle.net/10568/153558 https://hdl.handle.net/10568/150410 https://cn.ifpri.org/archives/4607 Open Access application/pdf International Food Policy Research Institute Tan, Zhibo and Zhang, Xiaobo. 2016. Does female labor scarcity encourage innovation? Evidence from China’s gender imbalance. IFPRI Discussion Paper 1540. Washington, DC: International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI). https://hdl.handle.net/10568/147474 |
| spellingShingle | innovation gender technological changes market structure technology labour elasticities factor analysis markets price volatility prices Tan, Zhibo Zhang, Xiaobo Does female labor scarcity encourage innovation? Evidence from China’s gender imbalance |
| title | Does female labor scarcity encourage innovation? Evidence from China’s gender imbalance |
| title_full | Does female labor scarcity encourage innovation? Evidence from China’s gender imbalance |
| title_fullStr | Does female labor scarcity encourage innovation? Evidence from China’s gender imbalance |
| title_full_unstemmed | Does female labor scarcity encourage innovation? Evidence from China’s gender imbalance |
| title_short | Does female labor scarcity encourage innovation? Evidence from China’s gender imbalance |
| title_sort | does female labor scarcity encourage innovation evidence from china s gender imbalance |
| topic | innovation gender technological changes market structure technology labour elasticities factor analysis markets price volatility prices |
| url | https://hdl.handle.net/10568/147474 |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT tanzhibo doesfemalelaborscarcityencourageinnovationevidencefromchinasgenderimbalance AT zhangxiaobo doesfemalelaborscarcityencourageinnovationevidencefromchinasgenderimbalance |