Household Registration System Reform and Firm Innovation: Evidence from China's Scaled Industrial Firms

China has relaxed its household registration system (HRS), making it easier for rural-to-urban migrants to settle in cities. By improving the stability of high-educated workers in firms, the HRS reform should enhance these firms' innovation. We investigate how the HRS reform influenced scaled i...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inEmerging markets finance & trade Vol. 59; no. 11; pp. 3468 - 3486
Main Authors Zhang, Fuxing, Yuan, Yan, Rong, Wanting
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Abingdon Routledge 02.09.2023
Taylor & Francis Ltd
Subjects
China
firm innovation
Household registration system reform
China
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Summary:China has relaxed its household registration system (HRS), making it easier for rural-to-urban migrants to settle in cities. By improving the stability of high-educated workers in firms, the HRS reform should enhance these firms' innovation. We investigate how the HRS reform influenced scaled industrial enterprises' innovation by exploiting the staggered HRS reform in different cities from 1998 to 2007. We find that the HRS reform significantly increased these firms' innovation output, measured by patent counts. We further find that this positive effect mainly existed among knowledge-intensive firms.
Bibliography:ObjectType-Article-1
SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1
ObjectType-Feature-2
content type line 14
ISSN:1540-496X
1558-0938
DOI:10.1080/1540496X.2023.2226793