随着经济发展进入新常态，我国对外贸易也进入了新的发展阶段。在这一背景下，本文从出口增速放缓这一事实出发，着眼于居民的经济和犯罪行为，从理论和实证上探究了2010年后我国出口增速放缓对个体的劳动力市场表现、家庭的经济决策以及犯罪活动的影响。 首先，本文构建了一个包含异质性个体和内生职业选择的一般均衡模型，从理论上推导负向的出口冲击如何改变个体的劳动力市场表现和犯罪行为。在模型中，个体存在先天能力差异，给定自身的先天能力和各种职业的收入水平，个体可以选择成为生产性工人、罪犯和企业家。罪犯构成了经济体中的资源掠夺部门，通过掠夺生产性工人和企业家的部分收入来谋生。模型的主要结论为，当资源掠夺部门的生产效率足够高、规模效应足够大时，负向的出口冲击会降低企业对生产性工人的需求，提高犯罪率。 接着，本文实证探究了出口增速放缓对居民经济行为的影响，包括个体的劳动力市场表现和家庭的经济决策。研究结果表明，出口增速放缓显著降低了个体的工资水平，增加了低技能工人的失业，提高了个体灵活就业和退出劳动市场的概率，同时还恶化了个体的心理健康状态。家庭层面的研究显示，出口增速放缓显著降低了家庭总收入，但对家庭总支出没有影响，这主要由于家庭在减少消费性支出的同时增加了抵御风险的福利性支出。此外，家庭更倾向于通过增加借款或延迟还贷的方式来平滑消费，而储蓄行为没有发生显著变化。 最后，利用海量的判决文书数据，本文创新性地探究了出口增速放缓对居民犯罪行为的影响。研究结果表明，出口增速放缓显著提高了地区的犯罪率。异质性分析显示，犯罪活动主要集中在初始年轻人占比、移民占比或制造业就业占比较高的地区，犯罪率的上升主要来源于包括抢劫、盗窃、诈骗在内的资源掠夺类犯罪以及暴力和黄赌毒类犯罪的增加。对于其中的影响机制，本文发现出口增速放缓主要通过恶化地区的劳动力市场条件和整体经济环境来提高犯罪。
As economic development has transited into a new normal, China’s international trade has also entered a new stage. In this context, based on the fact of export slowdown after 2010, this paper focuses on resident’s economic and criminal behaviors, and investigates both theoretically and empirically the effects of export slowdown on individual’s labor market performance, household’s economic decisions and criminal activities. First, this paper establishes a general equilibrium model incorporating heterogeneous agents and an endogenous choice of occupation. Specifically, individuals differ in the innate ability. Based on their innate ability and the labor market conditions, an individual can choose to become a production worker, a criminal or an entrepreneur. Criminals constitute the appropriation sector and make livings through stealing a fraction of the returns of production workers and entrepreneurs. The model predicts that, when appropriating activity exhibits high productivity and a strong scale effect, an adverse export shock will decrease the demand for production workers and then increase the percentage of criminals. Secondly, this paper investigates empirically the effects of export slowdown on resident’s economic behaviors, including individual’s labor market performance and household’s economic decisions. We find that export slowdown significantly reduces wage income, increases unemployment among low-skilled workers, and induces more individuals to engage in flexible employment or exit labor market. Moreover, export slowdown worsens individual’s mental health. At the household level, export slowdown decreases household income, but not significantly affects total household expenditure. This is due to households reducing consumption while increasing welfare expenditure to mitigate risks. Furthermore, households tend to smooth consumption by borrowing more or delaying loan payment, with no significant change in saving. Finally, based on millions of court judgment documents, this paper innovatively explores the effects of export slowdown on resident’s criminal behavior. We find that higher crime rates in cities that experience a more severe export slowdown. Heterogeneous analyses show that the effects are more pronounced in regions with a larger initial share in young people, migrants, or manufacturing employment. Higher crime rates mainly come from more offenses related to appropriation activity such as robbery, stealing, defraud, and more criminal activities involving violence, drugs, prostitution and gambling. As for the mechanisms, we find that export slowdown increases criminal activities mainly through worsening labor market conditions and regional economic environment.
