Our Doctoral Students Qiu Kangquan and Cao Zengdong Were Awarded the Title of Job Market Star for Doctoral Graduates at the 24th China Economics Annual Conference

Recently, the results of the "Job Market Star" selection for doctoral graduates at the 24th China Economics Annual Conference were officially announced. The "Job Market Star" activity for doctoral graduates is organized and selected by the China Economic Annual Conference, and has been successfully held for 23 sessions since its establishment in 2001. After the release of the selection notice, a total of 10 doctoral students from 7 universities including Peking University, Nankai University, and Beijing Normal University were finally awarded after comprehensive evaluation by the selection committee. Our two doctoral students, Qiu Kangquan and Cao Zengdong, were both shortlisted. Among them, Qiu Kangquan was a doctoral student majoring in Western Economics in our School of Class 2020, and Cao Zengdong was a doctoral student majoring in Western Economics in our School of Class 2022.

Figure 1: Group photo of the award ceremony, Cao Zengdong (first from the left of the winning student), Qiu Kangquan (fifth from the left of the winning student)

Figure 2: Qiu Kangquan

Qiu Kangquan is a doctoral student majoring in Western Economics at our university in 2020, under the supervision of Professor Xing Chunbing. His main research areas include labor economics, development economics, and happiness economics. Currently, his research focuses on the economic effects of optimizing the business environment, flexible employment, and related issues. At present, the research results of him have been published in journals such as Economic Research, Quantitative Economics and Technical Economics Research, Economic Dynamics, World Economic Literature, and Shanghai Economic Research. He has also served as a reviewer for journals such as Economic Research, Economic Dynamics, and Financial Forum, and have participated in multiple projects such as the National Social Science Fund. Qiu Kangquan was invited to present a paper titled "Informal Employment and Wage Gap: Evidence from a Survey of Employees in Labor Intensive Enterprises" at the annual meeting. This article is based on the background of the continuous widening of wage gap and the increasing scale of informal employment (mainly in the form of flexible employment by enterprises) in China in the past two decades. Using survey data of employees in labor-intensive enterprises in 2020 and 2021, it analyzes the impact of informal employment on wage levels and wage gaps. Research has found that after controlling for individual characteristics and firm fixed effects, the wage level of informal employment is significantly 6.4% lower than that of formal employment. Heterogeneity analysis shows that informal employment not only reduces the wages of low - and middle-income groups, but also increases the wages of high-income groups. Mechanism analysis further indicates that lower basic wages and the pursuit of job flexibility result in lower wage levels for informal workers; And higher skill returns enable some informal workers to earn wages higher than those of formal workers. Counterfactual analysis shows that informal employment widens the wage gap in urban areas: without informal employment, the logarithmic variance of hourly wages for employees in labor-intensive industries will decrease by 4%; If all employees are in informal employment, the logarithmic variance of hourly wages will increase by nearly 32%, and the increase in wage gap will mainly be reflected in the widening gap between middle and high-income groups. In addition, informal employment has generally widened the wage gap between different groups. If companies focus on providing informal employment positions that lack labor contract protection and have poor job stability, it will lead to even greater wage inequality. This study reveals that with the expansion of informal employment, China will face challenges such as a decrease in the proportion of middle-income groups and an widening wage gap, which poses a severe test to the current policy goal of narrowing the income gap through "lowering" and "expanding the middle" methods.

Figure 3: Cao Zengdong

Cao Zengdong is a doctoral student majoring in Western Economics of the class of 2022 at our university, supervised by Professor Tu Qin. His main research area is digital economy. Currently, he has published over ten papers in core journals such as Sociological Research, China Rural Observation, and China&World Economy; has won the 5th "Camphor Green Seedling Award" in the Camphor Economic Circle. Cao Zengdong was invited to present his paper on "E-commerce, Pandemic Shock, and the Survival of Small and Medium Enterprises" at this annual conference. This paper discusses the role of e-commerce in the crisis of the COVID-19, and reveals its impact on the survival of SMEs and its mechanism. In theory, a theoretical framework has been constructed based on the extended Hotelling model to investigate the impact of e-commerce on the survival rate of enterprises. It is inferred that there is a positive relationship between e-commerce and the cost markup rate and survival ability of enterprises. Empirically, based on the data from the Chinese Enterprise Innovation and Entrepreneurship Survey (ESIEC), the double difference strategy was used to verify the role of e-commerce in helping small and medium-sized enterprises to survive. This study enriches the evidence of enterprise resource-based theory and supplements the literature on enterprise digitalization to resist risks and improve resilience. The School has always attached great importance to talent cultivation and construction, implemented the fundamental task of cultivating morality and talents, actively explored new paths for cultivating top-notch innovative talents, and continuously promoted the construction of a scientific research and training system for high-level research talents. In recent years, the School has organized various activities such as "Graduate Academic Forum" and academic lectures to cultivate the independent research and analytical abilities of doctoral students, and to cultivate high-level and international talents with innovative abilities.

Contributed by Discipline Research Office

Edited by Sun Yue

Reviewed by Wei Hao