Exporting wage premium in the exporting sector: evidence from manufacturing firms in China

This paper investigates whether exporting firms pay average higher wages than non-exporting firms by analyzing a large sample of Chinese manufacturing firms in 2004. Through rigorous exercises involving robust regressions, quantile regressions and nonparametric matching estimators, we find that the wage premium of exporting activities is not a prevailing phenomenon in China. It is unevenly distributed among firms with different ownerships, export-orientations and locations. Overall, exporters located in coastal regions but Guangdong province are more likely to pay higher average wages than nonexporters, while those producing in Guangdong offer a lower pay.