This paper tests Wagner's law of increasing state activity using panels of Chinese provinces. The paper's main methodological contribution is in that we employ for the first time in the literature on Wagner's law a panel unit root, panel cointegration and Granger causality testing approach....

This article utilizes firm level audited data from Shanghai in 2002 and 2003 to examine the extent to which employers shift the burden of compliance with social security obligations back to employees in the form of lower wages. Results from a fixed effects panel model using data on a subset of...