Time: 1:30 p.m., Thursday, June 18, 2026

Venue: Guoshun Campus, Room 503, Starr Building

Moderator: Professor Xin Zhang

Speaker: Guanmin Liao, Renmin University of China

Topic: From Smog to Flexibility: Climate Mitigation and Corporate Labor Cost Stickiness

Abstract: This study exploits the staggered rollout of China's Clean Heating Plan from 2017 to 2022 as a quasi-experiment to examine the impact of climate risk mitigation policies on corporate labor cost stickiness. We find that the Plan significantly reduces air pollution in pilot cities and increases the local labor supply. This expansion of the labor pool leads to a decline in labor adjustment costs, as evidenced by the shortened recruitment time. Labor cost stickiness declines for up to three years following the Plan's implementation, primarily driven by headcount adjustments, particularly among highly skilled workers, rather than changes in average wages. The negative effect of the Plan is more pronounced for firms with greater exposures to labor adjustment costs as proxied by birth rate, net resident inflows, and recruitment time at the firms' domiciled city level, and by labor intensity, geographical concentration, and staffing flexibility at the firm level. These findings highlight the economic benefits of climate risk mitigation policies on firms' operational flexibility and labor cost efficiency.