The relative contributions of location and preferential policies in China's regional development: being in the right place and having the right incentives

A large part of the literature on provincial inequality in China has found it necessary to include regional dummies in the provincial growth regressions. A smaller but vocal part of the literature has emphasised the granting of preferential policies to explain the faster growth of the coastal provinces. We replace the regional dummies with a measure of the ability to participate in international trade (Geography), and a preferential policy index (Policy). We find that geography and policy had about equal influence on coastal growth (3 percentage points each). Geography affected growth with a much longer lag than policy, however. The policy index was highest for the metropolises (Beijing, Shanghai, and Tianjin) and lowest for the central and northwestern provinces. The preferential policies are to a large extent “deregulation policies” that enabled marketization and internationalization of the coastal economies and allowed them to become more like their East Asian neighbours (and competitors). The weak (statistically insignificant) support for conditional convergence is in line with the existence of institutions that retard the income convergence process generated by the movement of labor and capital and by the Stolper–Samuelson mechanism. The household registration system ties the peasants to the land, the monopoly state bank system favors borrowing by state enterprises, and local protectionism reduces inter-provincial trade. Clearly, these institutions need to be deregulated. An effective strategy to develop the western provinces must therefore encompass physical capital formation, human capital formation, and institutional capital formation.     

博弈分析企业人力资本投资

随着人力资本在企业中作用的增强,人力资本投资成为企业保持竞争力的重要保障。本文运用博弈的分析方法分析了企业中人力资本与物质资本的关系、人力资本投资费用的分担、人力资本投资的风险与收益3个方面问题,并得出相关结论。     

Health investment,physical capital accumulation,and economic growth

This paper analyzes the effect of health investment, and hence of health capital, on physical capital accumulation and long-run economic growth in an extended Ramsey model with an Arrow–Romer production function and a Grossman (1972) utility function. The paper concludes that economic growth is related to both the health growth rate and the health level. While growth in health capital always facilitates economic growth, the gross effect of health level on the rate of economic growth depends on how it affects physical capital accumulation. If the negative effect of health on economic growth through its influence on physical capital accumulation is not taken into consideration, then health level has a positive effect on the rate of economic growth by improving the efficiency of labor production. However, since health investment may crowd out physical capital investment and thus influence physical capital accumulation, excessive investment in health may have a negative effect on economic growth. Empirical tests of these theoretical hypotheses using panel data from individual provinces of China produce results that are consistent with our theoretical conclusions.     

Growth Accounting for the Chinese Provinces 1990–2000: Incorporating Human Capital Accumulation

This paper examines the linkage between aggregate real output, capital, labour, education, and productivity within a growth accounting framework for 27 Chinese provinces between 1990 and 2000. The results suggest that human capital has had a significant role in facilitating economic growth of all of the provinces throughout the 1990s. Regional disparities in factor accumulation are also considered. The results suggest that uneven distribution of resources between the coastal and inland provinces increased the regional gap in economic growth throughout the 1990s.     

广东人力资本存量与工业竞争力

以卢卡斯为代表的新经济增长理论认为,经济增长的源泉是人力资本的积累。本文选取广东、浙江、江苏、上海、山东五大工业省市,通过对其人力资本存量、人力资本产出及人力资本投资情况的对比分析,得出广东工业发展的潜力将受到人力资源不足的挑战。江苏、山东、上海在人力资源方面所显示出的优势将成为广东工业发展强有力的竞争者。     

Endogenous growth through externalities of investment: A different approach

One strand of endogenous growth theory deals with models where investment in physical capital shows positive externalities leading to increasing returns in the aggregate production function. Most of these models, however, assume that investment in physical capital influences the stock of human capital and physical capital to the same extent so that those two variables can be merged into one single-state variable [Sheshinski, 1967; Romer, 1986]. This paper points to some implications if this assumption is abandoned and underlines the consequences if human and physical capital are treated as two separate variables.     

科技金融对高技术产业科技创新的影响研究

基于27省市2010-2016年高技术产业数据,运用DEA模型和面板模型分析科技金融投入对科技创新效率的影响。结果表明：我国高技术产业科技创新效率整体呈东、中、西递减。在技术的开发阶段,企业、政府、社会资本对科技创新影响较为显著。在技术的市场化阶段,企业资金显著促进科技创新,而人力资本起到了阻碍作用。在技术的国际化阶段,资本市场投入和政府投入对科技创新产生抑制作用。     

人力资本投资中的职业教育

人力资本在生产增长中的作用远大于实物资本的作用。职业教育这种人力资本投资具有显现性、高效性、多元性,职业教育无论是在发达国家还是发展中国家日渐受到重视。这主要体现在职业教育在整个教育结构中和教育投资结构中的比例逐渐提高,从而使得个人、企业和国家都积极地参与职业教育的投资。     

Do Inland Provinces Benefit from Coastal Foreign Direct Investment in China?

Foreign direct investment (FDI) in China is heavily concentrated in the coastal regions. Do inland provinces benefit from coastal FDI? We use a provincial‐level panel dataset and employ the fixed‐effects instrumental variables regression technique to investigate the interregional spillovers from coastal FDI to inland provinces. The study finds that, on average, coastal FDI has a negative impact on the economic growth of inland provinces. In addition, depending on the different trade activities engaged in (i.e. whether processing trade or ordinary trade), coastal FDI has different impacts on the economic growth of inland provinces.     

The impact of foreign direct investment and human capital on economic growth: Evidence from Chinese cities

Using a panel of Chinese cities over the period 1991–2010, we examine the determinants of economic growth, focusing on the role of foreign direct investment (FDI) and human capital. Consistent with the predictions of a human capital-augmented Solow model, we find that the growth rate (along the path to the steady-state income level) of per capita GDP is negatively correlated with population growth rate and positively correlated with investment rate in physical capital and human capital. We find that FDI has a positive effect on the per capita GDP growth rate and this effect is intensified by the human capital endowment of the city. The latter suggests that one way that human capital contributes to growth is to serve as a facilitator for technology transfers stemming from FDI. Furthermore, we find some suggestive evidence that the FDI-human capital complementary effect is stronger for technology-intensive FDI than for labor-intensive FDI. Our results are robust to alternative measures of human capital, model specifications, and estimation methods.     

Health,education, and economic growth in China: Empirical findings and implications

This empirical analysis examines the augmented Mankiw, Romer and Weil's model which considers both health and education in human capital in the framework of Chinese economy. We consider the relationship between per capita real GDP growth and the physical capital, human capital, and health investment in the production function. Panel data models are used in the estimation based on the provincial data from 1978–2005. The empirical evidence shows that both health and education have positive significant effects on economic growth. The results also show that the interaction of health and education stock will not reduce their impact on growth and there is perhaps a trade-off between two forms of human capital investment.     

河北省人力资本投资效率研究

利用全国30个省市的人力资本投资数据,采用DEA模型选取5个投入指标和3个产出指标,对河北省的人力资本投资效率进行研究.结果显示,河北省的人力资本投资综合效率和技术效率在全国同期水平中偏低,但规模效率略高于全国平均水平,主要是由于技术效率的偏低引起的综合效率较低,最后通过分析冗余值提出提高河北省人力资本投资效率的建议.     

Openness,human capital and total factor productivity: evidence from China

This paper examines the drivers behind China's economic growth. In particular, it focuses on the channels of knowledge spillovers: human capital and openness to trade and foreign direct investment. The specific features of the study include using the most recent comprehensive panel data consisting of 29 provinces during the period 1994–2006 and performing unit root and cointegration tests in the panel data framework. The paper finds that human capital, trade and FDI are the significant determinants of total factor productivity, but their importance varies with technological levels of provinces. These findings have important policy implications.     

Human capital quality and the regional economic growth: Evidence from China

China's economic development has advanced from a high-speed to a high-quality growth stage in recent years. The optimization and upgrading of the economic structure require high-quality human capital to support an innovation-driven economy. In this paper, a general equilibrium model of human capital (Xiang & Yeaple, 2018) is applied to estimate the cognitive and non-cognitive productivities based on Chinese provincial-level macro-data and individual labor's micro-data from 2008 to 2017. The weighted power mean of cognitive and non-cognitive productivities helps calculate the provincial-level human capital quality index (HCQI), which provides a realistic estimate of human capital quality. We find that the improvement of the HCQI leads to convergence in economic growth in China's provinces. HCQI can help explain the differences in economic growth levels in different regions of China. Our study provides a constructive step in understanding cognitive and non-cognitive abilities and HCQI in China, which could help guide education investment policy in China and its provinces.     

Key Factors of Recent Chinese Provincial Economic Growth

The aim of this paper is to analyse the factors that affected Chinese provincial economic growth after the reforms of the early 1980s, through a panel analysis (period 1986–2001). The production function approach focuses on human capital, ‘space-serving’ infrastructure, sectoral allocation of labour and institutional changes. Indices relevant for the analysis are elaborated and provincial capital stocks are estimated. The empirical results indicate the positive role of capital stock, human capital and physical infrastructure and underline that sectoral allocation of labour and institutional changes affected the level of aggregate output. A redistribution policy in favour of the inland provinces needs to be implemented so that human capital and infrastructure can be enhanced, bottlenecks can be overcome and investment can be attracted.     

人力资本投资与农民收入增长

人力资本通过影响农民的信息获取、生产和资源配置等方面能力来影响农民收入增长,文章运用15个省市1993--2008年数据,实证分析了人力资本投资对农民收入增长的影响程度,结果表明人力资本对农民收入增长有显著的正影响,是影响农民收入增长的最关键因素。而根据资料统计分析,我国农民人力资本的存量和投资明显不足,严重制约了农民增收。究其原因,一方面是农民缺乏投资意识和投资能力有限,另一方面也与政府在农村人力资本投资不足有关。     

Human capital estimates in China: New panel data 1985–2010

We introduce new provincial level panel data on human capital in China from 1985 to 2010. Our estimation of human capital is based on the Jorgenson–Fraumeni lifetime income approach modified to fit the Chinese data, thereby allowing a more comprehensive measurement of human capital than traditional partial measurements, such as education. Our provincial data are adjusted for purchasing power parity via a living-cost index as well as for real values so that all values are comparable across the provinces and time. We discuss various characteristics of the data, including total human capital, per capita human capital, and labor force human capital, which in turn are disaggregated based on gender and urban or rural location. Our human capital estimates are compared with the provincial physical capital estimates and provincial GDP. As an illustration, we also use the data to estimate a production function and to decompose China's economic growth from physical capital, human capital, and TFP. Our results, compared with those that use traditional specifications, reassure us as to the reliability of our new China human capital data.     

The Effect of Public Infrastructure on Cost Structure and Performance of Chinese Provinces*

This paper estimates a translog cost function for 29 Chinese provinces between 1979 and 2018. The results imply that investment in public infrastructure reduces costs in all provinces. Comparing the estimated rate of return to infrastructure with the rate of return to private capital, our results indicate underinvestment for the initial period after the economic reforms; however, after 2010 our results show overinvestment in infrastructure. Infrastructure capital is a substitute input to labor, private capital and intermediate inputs. Finally, public infrastructure growth contributes positively to labor and total factor productivity growth, but the effect is small. The growth of private capital and intermediate inputs are the most important factors that boost the growth of labor productivity.     

基于DEA-Malmquist模型的中国沿海省份科技创新效率研究

构建科技创新效率评价指标体系,运用DEA-BCC模型静态分析2021年中国沿海11个省份科技创新效率水平,对非DEA有效省份进行原因分析,并运用Malmquist指数,动态分析2011—2021年中国沿海11个省份科技创新效率的时空变化。研究发现：从静态分析看,2021年中国沿海省份科技创新效率整体较高,其中东部地区海洋经济圈科技创新效率水平最高,南部地区海洋经济圈科技创新效率最弱;纯规模效率是影响沿海省份能否处于DEA有效状态重要因素;从动态分析看,评价期内中国沿海省份科技创新整体处上升状态,Malmquist指数呈“下降-上升-下降-上升”循坏变化;三大海洋经济圈从北往南依次为1.064、1.037、1.032,呈“北高南低”的空间布局,综合技术效率、纯技术效率是决定科技创新效率空间布局的关键因素。基于此,提出坚持市场需求导向,强化企业科技创新主体地位、优化科研资源投入,提升科技市场活力、打破区域限制,实现沿海科技创新协调发展等建议。     

Aggregate fluctuations in a monetary two-sector endogenous growth model

This paper examines the implications of a monetary human capital investment endogenous growth model for aggregate economic fluctuations. In addition, an exogenous growth model with a similar human capital investment specification is included in the analysis to compare the business cycle properties of the endogenous growth model with that of the exogenous growth model. The money introduced into the models allows for the liquidity effects. It is found that both the endogenous and exogenous human capital investment growth models are able to capture the business cycle properties of U.S. data closely. Some sensitivity analysis results are provided. The theory predicts that the stochastic properties of the human capital shocks affect the ability of the models to generate the business cycle facts.