华南市场经济研究中心

题目：Do Birth Dates Matter for Individual Income: Evidence from China

主讲人：何晓波副教授　上海金融学院          

时间：2016年9月23日（周五）下午14:30

地点：学院五楼会议室

Abstract：This paper examines the relationship between months of birth and individual income in China. Using data from the China General Social Survey (CGSS 2006, 2010, 2012 and 2013), this study finds that Chinese people born in September and later on average earn 4% more relative to those born in August and earlier in the same school calendar year. Ruling out confounding effects such as relative age differentials, individual intelligence, health and cohorts, the main results remain unchanged. The key explanation is that the Chinese children enter school when they turn age 6 by August 31 in a given year. This rule makes those who born on September 1 the oldest in the class while those who born on August 31 the youngest. In general, the advantage of having more months of education enhances human capital accumulation thus individual income. This birth date effect is also robust to a battery of falsification tests.