Research seminar by Thorsten Chmura (University of Nottingham, Ningbo, China): «Gift exchange with migrant workers and students in China»

Thursday, March 10 at 4.30 pm ICEF held the Research seminar.
Venue: Pokrovski Bulvar, 11, Room Zh-822
Speaker: Thorsten Chmura (University of Nottingham, Ningbo, China)
Theme: «Gift exchange with migrant workers and students in China» (joint with Sebastian Goerg)

 

 

Abstract: In this study we investigate the determinants of wage discrimination combining lab and real world data. Therefore, we conducted two gift-exchange experiments in Shang- hai and Ningbo (China) involving students and migrant workers. Students act in the role of employers and decide about the wage of the migrant workers, while the mi- grant workers choose their effort level given the actual wage. The employers have the possibility to condition the wage on the workers' origin. The workers' home province is the only criteria to differentiate between the migrant workers. We observe a high variance in wages across provinces. Combining our lab results with real world data, we can investigate the determinants of wage discrimination. In our setting wages are positively influenced by the economic power of the workers' home province, and negatively influenced by the geographical distance between the employers' and workers' home provinces and the ethnical heterogeneity in workers' provinces. The same pattern is observed within a pure student sample.

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