2024年6月20日（周四）13:30-15:00 杭静 （中山大学）

讲座系列：前沿专题系列讲座第53场

讲座人：杭静（中山大学岭南学院副教授）

时间：2024年6月20日（周四）13:30-15:00

地点：博学楼1222

主持人：王韡（对外经贸大学国际经济贸易学院经济学系教授）

讲座题目：Transportation Costs, Ability Sorting, and the Dual Economy

讲座摘要：This paper proposes a novel explanation for the large labor productivity gap between agriculture and non-agriculture  in developing countries. I interpret the productivity gaps as reflecting high ability workers sort into non-agriculture while low ability workers sort into agriculture. The sorting mechanism builds on two ingredients: lower food prices for agricultural workers due to transportation costs and declining food expenditure shares in income due to subsistence food requirement. Low ability （income） workers value lower food prices more because they spend a larger fraction of their income on food. The sorting mechanism has larger effects in developing countries as these countries have higher transportation costs and higher expenditure share of food. I formalize the idea in a two-sector multi-region general equilibrium model. Quantitative analysis shows that the ability sorting mechanism can explain around 30% of the labor productivity gap in Malawi relative U.S. Model predictions are tested using a detailed household survey from Malawi.

主讲人简介：

杭静，中山大学岭南学院国际经济和区域经济教研室副教授。他于2018年于加州大学洛杉矶（UCLA）获得经济学博士学位，其研究兴趣在于理解资源错配和产业结构转型在经济发展中的作用，部分研究发表于Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization,《经济研究》等国内外学术刊物，并主持国家自然科学基金青年项目，博士后基金面上项目等基金项目。

讲座人主页：

https://lingnan.sysu.edu.cn/faculty/HangJing