Higher education expansion and domestic value added in exports: Theory and evidence from China

This paper analyzes the impact of China’s higher education expansion on domestic value added in exports. To be specific, we firstly construct a nested CES production function model, with import inputs being complementary to skilled labors, and substitutable to unskilled labors. By exploiting China’s higher education expansion as a quasi-natural experiment, this paper accurately examines the causal effect of the human capital expansion on the domestic value-added in exports. The results show that human capital expansion has negative effects on the domestic value-added in exports, and this result is driven by import inputs increase and processing trade engagement. We also find that the effect is more prominent for processing trade, foreign-invested firms, high-tech firms and disciplines of science and engineering.     

高等教育财政支出绩效评价研究

纵观全球,世界上大部分的经济强国,同时也是教育强国。为了促进经济社会更好更快的发展,国家要大力支持教育事业的发展。在《国家中长期教育改革和发展规划纲要(2010-2020年)》中专门提到,高等教育承担着培养高级专门人才、发展科学技术文化、促进现代化建设的重大任务[1]。截至2019年,全国各类高等教育共有4002万在学人数,高等教育毛入学率达到51.6%。在国际上通常认为,精英教育的毛入学率在15%以下,高等教育大众化的毛入学率在15%-50%,从我国的高等教育毛入学率来看,我国已经达到高等教育大众化的后期阶段。随着高等教育的大众化发展,高等学校数量不断增加,专任教师人数不断增加,高等教育招生数量也在不断增加,所以对教育经费的需求也在不断增加。如何能在有限的财政资金中,提高财政支出使用效率,提高资源配置效率,是当前摆在各个高校面前的重要任务。     

Efficiency evaluation for higher education institutions in China considering unbalanced regional development: A meta-frontier Super-SBM model

The development of higher education institutions (HEIs) is related to the future overall development of higher education in China. Studying the efficiency of provincial HEIs in China has great significance in deepening the reform of higher education evaluation, promoting coordinated regional development, and building a country powerful in its higher education. Based on the Super-SBM method, this paper creatively integrates meta-frontier theory and an index of international exchange and cooperation into an evaluation system for higher education efficiency. Taking 2011–2020 as the sample period, this study conducts a dynamic assessment of the higher education efficiency in 30 mainland Chinese provinces. It explores the differences in production technology in the eastern, central, and western regions, analyzing the environmental factors that affect the efficiency of higher education. The results show that during the sample period, the overall efficiency of higher education in China improved steadily. Efficiency Change is the main driving force. The three regions have significantly different technology gap ratio, and the structure of resource allocation significantly impacts efficiency. Therefore, this study's main recommendations are that the Chinese government should not only deepen the coordinated development of higher education between regions but also pay more attention to solving the problem of unbalanced development between China's geographical regions. At the same time, educational authorities should expand the number of ordinary colleges and universities in the central and western regions, develop non-financial funding sources, and improve the level of refined management of HEIs.     

Neighborhood effects,college education,and social mobility

This study models the impact of environmental factors on upward social mobility, where the educational environment is measured by the proportion of college-educated individuals, and social mobility is measured by a change in proportion of people in different income classes. The dynamics of the educational environment is modeled using a modified version of the invasion/extinction ecological model of Richard Levins. The educational environment influences the educational choices of poor people, becoming effective only after a threshold point is reached. The rate of growth in influence is modeled using a monotonically increasing saturation function, which includes a delay parameter referred to as handling time, that measures the speed of influence. Our simulations indicate that poor people choose to become educated at a rate that primarily depends on the density of the local environment.     

Is human and financial investment in Chinese universities effective?

To obtain high-quality human resources and to gain advantages in the context of global competition, countries are constantly promoting the development of higher education. Enormous human and financial resources were invested in this “battle”. However, the “inputs” consumed by universities are largely ignored. A major issue, evaluating how well a country's universities make use of input resources in their output path, is of economic and social significance. The focus of this study is to embed the concept of capacity utilization in education and to assess the university's performance. We construct an attainable output-oriented capacity utilization measurement model by taking into account the heterogeneity of the region. According to the usage of the input, we divide the decision making units into four areas and identify the causes of inefficiency. Thus, the methodology proposed in this study provides policymakers an applicable tool on differences in educational inputs across regions. To illustrate the method, we conduct an empirical analysis using data from 54 universities directly under the Ministry of Education in China.     

The expansion of higher education and household saving in China

We examine whether access to higher education impacts household saving rates. A 2-period model of household saving decisions demonstrates why increased college opportunities induce households with children to save more. We examine this theory using survey data from Chinese households during the unprecedented education expansion. Using estimates of the change in the expected probability of college attendance, we estimate the effect on household saving rates by comparing households before and after the reform. We find that a 10-percentage point increase in the probability of going to college raises the saving rate by 5.9 percentage points.     

Grandiose branding: World-class aim and its organizational consequences

Branding has become a strategic tool for university management in competition for students, faculty, and funding. In this study, we explore university branding in its extreme form of grandiose branding and ask How can grandiose branding initiate a process that prompts ethically and morally questionable practices in organizations? Grandiose branding is characterized by an excessive use of superlatives that frame higher education institutions as “world-class universities.” Through a self- and autoethnographic single-case study conducted in a business school, our study shows that branding efforts that do not align with an organization’s actual quality and performance can lead to a counterproductive cycle of camouflaging top management’s failures and justifying ethically and morally questionable actions directed towards the institution’s primary stakeholders. The study contributes to the earlier literature on grandiosity in the context of higher education by taking a process perspective and explores the implications of grandiose branding from rhetoric through implementation.     

新政府会计制度下高职院校财务管理质量提升对策探析

高职院校会计核算有其自身特点,新政府会计制度背景下对财务管理提出了新要求,同时高职院校会计核算和财务管理中面临着许多需要改进提升的地方,介绍了新政府会计制度的核算特点,在分析高职院校财务管理不足基础上提出了提升财务管理质量的对策,以期维护高职院校财经秩序,促进学校健康发展。