The need to lay off redundant employees emerged as an important policy issue in urban China in the 1990s. The degree of over-manning can be estimated by comparing estimates of the marginal product of labor with estimates of the full wage, including bonuses, subsidies, and non-cash benefits. We...

We study the evolution of employment and wage outcomes in Chinese SOEs during the first decade of economic reforms, using a panel of data for almost 1000 enterprises covering the years 1980-90. Unlike the 1990s, which were marked by growing labor redundancy in the SOE sector, we find that...