China Economic Quarterly International (CEQI)

Volume 5, Number 3

September 2025

Impact of maternity leave policy reform on enterprise labor employment: Evidence from China matched employer-employee longitudinal survey data

Hong Liu, Meng Jiao, Chuliang Luo

Administrative monopoly regulation and employee wages: Evidence from Fair competition review system in China

Pengcheng Jiang, Yujia Niu

Uncertainty shocks, transnational innovation collaboration, and Chinese firm innovation

Canlei Liu, Ruixue Jiang, Li Jiang

Institutional opening-up promotes local enterprises’ innovation: From the perspective of standards opening-up

Zhihao Yang, Junjie Hong

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Impact of maternity leave policy reform on enterprise labor employment: Evidence from China matched employer-employee longitudinal survey data

Hong Liu, Meng Jiao, Chuliang Luo

Abstract

This study uses the China Matched Employer-Employee Longitudinal Survey data to evaluate the impact of maternity leave reform on enterprise labor employment. The results show that the reform does not affect overall labor employment but reduces the proportion of female employees, increasing labor costs for firms with female employees who have taken maternity leave. Mechanism analysis indicates that the reform leads to gender discrimination and cost-shifting effects, negatively impacting the formal employment, promotion, and wages of women of childbearing age, while increasing substitute labor costs for firms. Explicitly specifying that maternity leave allowances be paid by the maternity insurance fund helps alleviate these adverse effects.

Administrative monopoly regulation and employee wages: Evidence from Fair competition review system in China

Pengcheng Jiang, Yujia Niu

Abstract

Unlike previous studies examining how monopoly regulation policies affect enterprise behavior, this study uses the implementation of China's Fair Competition Review System as a quasi-natural experiment. This study uses data from non-financial listed enterprises and employs a difference-in-differences model to explore the impact and mechanism of administrative monopoly regulation on employee wages. The results show that administrative monopoly regulation can reduce average employee wages in administrative monopoly enterprises. This negative effect is more pronounced in firms with lower financing constraints and higher operating profits and in provinces with stronger government intervention. The economic mechanism test results indicate that reducing economic rent, curbing the labor scale, and increasing financing constraints are important mechanisms through which administrative monopoly regulation curbs excessively high compensation in these enterprises. Finally, this study finds that administrative monopoly regulation helps narrow the internal compensation gap of administrative monopoly enterprises.

Uncertainty shocks, transnational innovation collaboration, and Chinese firm innovation

Liu Canlei, Jiang Ruixue, Jiang Li

Abstract

Exploiting the quasi-natural experiment of the U.S.-China trade friction, we empirically examine the impact of uncertainty shocks on Chinese firms' overseas patent applications and transnational innovation collaboration. We find that uncertainty shocks suppress Chinese firms’ overseas innovation performance, resulting in a disruption effect on innovation collaboration with the U.S., but a diversion effect on collaborations with other countries, which is particularly evident in U.S. innovation partners, Europe, Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN), Japan, and South Korea. Heterogeneity analysis shows that these shocks disproportionately affect high-tech industries, industries with strong influence, and those with close U.S.-China innovation linkages.

Institutional opening-up promotes local enterprises’ innovation: From the perspective of standards opening-up

Zhihao Yang, Junjie Hong

Abstract

The participation of foreign-invested enterprises in the formulation of national standards is taken as an opportunity to identify standards opening-up, and the impact of standards opening-up on local firms' innovation is examined. It is found that standards opening-up promotes local firms' innovation, works through collaboration between Chinese and foreign firms, market competition, and information transmission mechanism, and influences upstream and downstream innovation along the industrial chain. In addition, standards opening-up promotes firms’ product upgrading and exporting, standards harmonization, and foreign investment stabilization. These findings explain the significance of steady expansion of institutional opening-up.