【Job Talk】Coercive Growth: Forced Resettlement and Ethnicity-Based Agglomeration
2025/01/21
研討會日期 : 2025-01-21
時間 : 10:30
主講人 : Dr. Hsuan-Ming Hsu
地點 : Conference Room B110
演講者 : Professor Wen-Tai Hsu
演講者簡介 : Dr. Hsu received his Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Chicago in 2024. He is currently a Postdoctoral Scholar at the University of Chicago. His research fields are Urban Economics, Economic History, and Development Economics. He is applying for a position of the Institute of Economics, Academia Sinica now.
演講摘要 : How do social divisions affect the benefits of agglomeration? While the clustering of people can enhance productivity through social interactions, social divisions such as ethnic segregation and tension may limit these gains. To answer this question, I leverage an ethnic-based resettlement program that forcibly relocated 600,000 rural Chinese into compact villages in 1950s British Malaya. I find that, decades later, areas with higher resettlement had persistently higher population densities and concentrations of Chinese, driven by both the program's direct impact and internal migration. Moreover, these areas were wealthier, more industrialized, and exhibited greater labor market specialization. However, the economic benefits primarily accrued to the Chinese population, while other ethnic groups saw only marginal gains when geographically integrated with the Chinese and working in non-agricultural sectors. To assess the overall impact of the program, I estimate a quantitative spatial model that allows agglomeration externalities to vary by sector and ethnic composition. While the resettlement increased aggregate output, the gains were insufficient to offset the welfare losses from the program's coercive nature.
