Topic: Does overseas contact bring comparative advantages to local enterprises? Evidence from Wenzhounese emigration

Speaker: LIN Jianhao

Time: 15:00-17:30pm Friday, December 7,2018

Site: EMS A208

Abstract: The link between international migration and trade has long been an issue of concern. This paper studies the effects of emigration on exporting in Wenzhou, one major origin of Chinese migration to Europe. China has a unique system of non-governmental organizations called Federation of Returned Overseas Chinese (henceforth FROC). We use village-level FROC data to measure the overseas relations. It is found that firms in regions with larger emigration export less. We hypothesize that emigration changes the comparative advantages of these firms. Compared with other domestic firms, Wenzhou enterprises have comparative advantages in high-quality branded products, but they are not superior to European competitors, which forces them to lower their export intensity. Our hypothesis is supported by empirical evidence that these firms have more capital input and spend more on advertising, which may be regarded as a strategy of high quality and branding.

Introduction to the Speaker：

Doctor in Economics, Lin Jianhao is an associate professor in LingNan college of Sun Yat-sen University. His primary research field is: the measurement and diffusion mechanism of monetary policy communication of central Banks; the relationship between cultural factors such as dialects, clans, religions and concepts and economic decisions made by individuals and family enterprises; business statistics analysis.