Horng Chern Wong
Assistant professor, Stockholm University
Welcome to my website!
I am an assistant professor at the Department of Economics at Stockholm University.
Research fields: labor economics, macroeconomics, trade
Email: horngchernwong@gmail.com
CV: here
Research
WORKING PAPERS
Revise & Resubmit @ American Economic Review
Abstract: Some firms pay higher wages than others for identical workers. I explore the role of product market power in accounting for this fact. I document new empirical relations between wages and firms' product market power that are inconsistent with existing models. To explain these patterns, I build a model in which firms produce vertically differentiated goods and share product market rents with their employees. The model shows that product appeal/quality is as important as productivity and amenities for wage dispersion. Further, markups may widen wage dispersion through rent-sharing, but quantitatively dampens it as high-wage firms reduce output, suppressing wage levels overall.
Urban-Biased Structural Change (with Natalie Chen, Dennis Novy, & Carlo Perroni)
Abstract: Using firm-level data from France, we document that the shift of economic activity from manufacturing to services over the last few decades has been urban-biased: structural change has been more pronounced in areas with higher population density. This bias can be accounted for by the location choices of large services firms that sort into big cities and large manufacturing firms that increasingly locate in suburban and rural areas. Motivated by these findings, we estimate a structural model of city formation with heterogeneous firms and international trade. We find that agglomeration economies have strengthened for services but weakened for manufacturing. This divergence is a key driver of the urban bias but it dampens aggregate structural change. Rising manufacturing productivity and falling international trade costs further contribute to the growth of large services firms in the densest urban areas, boosting services productivity and services exports, but also land prices.
RESEARCH IN PROGRESS
Firms and International Trade: Geographical Location or Productivity? (with Natalie Chen, Dennis Novy, & Carlo Perroni)
What Determines the MRPL?
Structural Change Within the Firm (with Simon Bunel and Berengere Patault)