On average, Hukou became substantially less restrictive. Between 2014 - 2019, our period of study, on average, 10 percent of rural origin populations became eligible to get urban Hukou across all rural-urban pairs.

The Hukou system long restricted access to urban jobs, housing, and services. Reforms in the last decades at the municipal and city level targeting specific origins and types of workers create rich variation in Hukou eligibility across bilateral rural-urban routes.

Example: Shaji Village, Jiangsu.

A migrant worker came back from Shanghai inspired by an Ikea store. He started making simple flat-pack furniture— easy to ship online. Today, Shaji is a major furniture cluster.

Take China’s “Taobao Villages”

Many began when migrants returned home after working in cities. They used what they’d learned about urban demand to build thriving e-commerce hubs connecting rural producers to city buyers.

🚨 WP Alert 🚨 ‘Rural-Urban Migration and Market Integration’ with @BenFaber, @WeiLin, and @MingLi is now R&R at AER. www.nber.org/papers/w34098