This paper looks at the wage system in Chinese state-owned enterprises (SOEs) during the 1980s. While wages remained compressed, there is evidence for the use of incentive mechanisms. Wages were quite sensitive to firm performance, especially at higher levels of the hierarchy. One of the reform...

This paper tries to document the increased flexibility in employment relations in Chinese SOEs until 1994, as well as the effects this had on productivity and on the allocation of workers. A number of measures were introduced to enhance such flexibility, such as autonomy in the decision to hire...