We study the evolution of employment and wage outcomes in Chinese SOEs during the first decade of economic reforms, using a panel of data for almost 1000 enterprises covering the years 1980-90. Unlike the 1990s, which were marked by growing labor redundancy in the SOE sector, we find that...

We study the evolution of employment and wage outcomes in Chinese SOEs during the first decade of economic reforms, studying a panel of data for almost 1000 enterprises covering the years 1980-90. Despite the consensus on the persistence of labor redundancy in the SOE sector, we find that...

This paper concerns employment and wage determination in the state industrial sector in China, focusing on the pre-reform era as a baseline. We argue that in that period, the sector faced an upward sloping supply curve of labor, and we provide statistical evidence for this proposition. We then...