Co-authored Paper by Associate Professor Hu Haoran Published in Authoritative Journal China Economic Quarterly

Recently, the co-authored paper Does the Implementation of Cleaner Production Industry Standards Widen the Wage Inequality Among Enterprises? by Associate Professor Hu Haoran from the School of Economics, Shandong University, Professor Shi Bingzhan from the School of Economics, Nankai University, and Associate Professor Song Yanqun from the School of Public Finance and Taxation, Shandong University of Finance and Economics, was published in the 1st issue of 2025 of China Economic Quarterly, an authoritative economics journal.

Taking the implementation of cleaner production industry standards as an example, this paper finds that environmental regulation of cleaner production widens the wage inequality among enterprises within the industry. The mechanism analysis shows that environmental regulation of cleaner production brings about a cost-shifting effect, and enterprises shift environmental governance costs to workers by reducing wages. Moreover, the cost-shifting effect is more prominent in highly polluting enterprises, leading to a widening of wage inequality between highly and lowly polluting enterprises. In addition, under the continuous influence of the cost-shifting effect, environmental regulation of cleaner production mainly reduces the labor skills, productivity and technological innovation of workers in highly polluting enterprises, further exacerbating the wage inequality between highly and lowly polluting enterprises.

Hu Haoran is an Associate Professor and Master Supervisor at the School of Economics, Shandong University, with a Ph.D. in Economics from Nankai University. His main research fields are international trade and environmental regulation. He has presided over 2 provincial-level projects and published more than 30 papers in core Chinese journals (CSSCI) such as China Economic Quarterly , The Journal of World Economy , China Industrial Economics , Finance & Trade Economics , Economic Science , and Studies of Finance and Economics . He  serves as a reviewer for more than 20 journals including China Economic Quarterly and The Journal of World Economy .