Rachel Ngai | China's Mobility Barriers and Employment Allocations

On November 1, 2018, the 3rd "CIFER Macroeconomics and International Economics Workshop" of the Center for International Finance and Economics Research (CIFER) at the National Institute of Tsinghua University was successfully held. Rachel Ngai, an associate professor at the London School of Economics and Political Science, had in - depth exchanges with the experts and scholars present on her latest research results.


Rachel Ngai obtained her Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Pennsylvania in 2001. Her research areas cover macroeconomics, economic growth, and labor - related fields (CV attached). In this Workshop, Rachel Ngai first sorted out the evolution process of China's economic structure and the history and current situation of the household registration system. Then, based on the micro - economic model and empirical data, she further investigated and found that land policies and social security have tied too many labor forces in the agricultural sector, and the impact of land policies is particularly obvious. Based on the above research, Rachel Ngai put forward the view that "the household registration system distorts the labor market in terms of both land policies and social security", and believes that effective land ownership protection and a fully competitive land lease market can correct the aforementioned distortion phenomena.