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.     

Measures of human capital and the mechanics of economic growth

We examine the mechanism by which human capital affects economic growth and convergence, using provincial level panel data from China. We specify alternative measures of human capital and apply them to an enhanced growth model, which we estimate parametrically, nonparametrically, and with a threshold model. Our results show that economic convergence is pronouncedly conditional on human capital across all measures. The positive “benefit of being backward” due to lower initial income is almost trumped by the negative impact of low levels of human capital in the poorest areas.     

Human capital dynamics in China: Evidence from a club convergence approach

This paper investigates the evolution of human capital in China for 31 provinces over the period of 1985–2016 from a club convergence perspective. Per capita human capital stocks, estimated using the Jorgenson–Fraumeni lifetime income approach, are for the first time examined within a non-linear latent factor framework that allows to model a wide range of transition dynamics for each province along the path to convergence. The study finds no overall convergence between provinces in China, however, the results strongly support the existence of multiple convergence clubs. While a small group of provinces are converging toward the highest levels of human capital, most of the other provinces are failing to catch up and form separate clusters that converge to lower equilibria. These regional patterns provide new evidence on the increasing human capital gap between Chinese provinces, posing a significant challenge to a more inclusive and harmonious human and economic development.     

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.     

Opening up,Market Reform,and Convergence Clubs in China*

This paper evaluates the relationship between initial government policies and the emergence of convergence clubs in post‐reform China. We test the structural stability of a global convergence equation using China's provincial data over the period 1985–2000. We find that the provinces cluster around two basins of attraction defined by initial opening‐up. Domestic market reform exerts a positive and significant influence on provincial economic growth but has no threshold effect. The two convergence clubs exhibit strikingly different growth behaviors, suggesting that the roles of some growth‐promoting factors, such as human capital and infrastructure, depend on whether an openness threshold is passed.     

Classification of Growth Clubs and Convergence： Evidence from Panel Data in China, 1981-2004

This paper uses provincial panel data to examine club convergence in China during 1981–2004. We estimate the province‐specific initial technology level, A(0), and classify the Chinese economy into “developed club” and “underdeveloped club” based on the economic characteristics of A(0), instead of on geographical location. We find significant evidence of conditional convergence across provinces, and that the convergence speed in the developed club is faster than that in the underdeveloped club. We also find that: (i) human capital accumulation contributes more than physical capital does to club convergence; (ii) there is a positive correlation between infrastructure and growth convergence at the national level and within the developed club, while the spillover effect of infrastructure has not been developed in the developing club; and (iii) the effect of economic openness on convergence is tiny, and insignificant across and within clubs.     

制度质量与中国区域经济增长差异的格兰杰因果分析——基于中国区域面板数据

文章以中国31个省市1994-2012年的经济增长和制度质量指标构成的面板数据为基础进行单位根、协整检验及格兰杰因果检验,实证检验了制度质量与中国区域经济增长差异之间的关系。结果表明,制度质量差异是中国区域经济增长差异的重要原因,同时经济增长差异也会致使区域间的制度环境不同。为此,各级政府应加强制度建设,促进市场化发展,为经济主体提供公平的竞争环境,改善产权关系,提高政府效率,使经济增长和制度环境得以良性循环发展,同时这也是缩小区域经济增长差异以及经济落后地区实现赶超最根本的途径之一。     

Total Factor Productivity of the Japanese Rice Industry

We calculate partial factor productivity and total factor productivity (TFP) indices for rice production using panel data across 42 Japanese prefectures from 1996 to 2006, and perform panel unit root tests of TFP convergence across prefectures. We find that during this period, the partial factor productivity growth rates for capital, land and materials stagnated at the aggregate national level, as did the TFP growth rate, despite a large increase in labor productivity. We also identify evidence of a convergence in TFP across Japanese prefectures.     

人力资本投资结构及其对经济增长的影响——基于扩展MRW模型的内生增长理论与实证研究

本文针对已有的关于人力资本投资的理论研究往往只关注人力资本投资数量而忽视人力投资结构研究的现状，把教育和健康看作两种资本，分析了人力资本投资的具体构成形式。假设人力资本由教育资本和健康资本按照Cobb—Douglas生产技术形式组合生成。通过扩展Mankiw、Romer和Weil（1992）模型（简称MRW模型），构建了一个新的内生经济增长模型。理论分析结果表明：人力资本投资结构制约着经济增长，人力资本积累和存量都对经济产生重要影响。最后文章以理论分析为基础构建计量经济模型，利用1978—2004年中国29个省、市、自治区的面板数据实证分析了人力资本的积累和存量以及教育资本和健康资本对中国经济增长的影响。实证结果表明较好地支持了本文的理论拓展分析。     

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.     

中国区域经济收敛与地区差距的再检验

本文首先收集1985—2006年中国28个省市数据验证中国区域经济增长的条件β收敛和绝对β收敛,然后运用Blinder—Oaxaca分解方法来分析造成我国东部地区与中西部地区发展差距的原因。实证结果显示,我国自1985年来区域经济增长没有表现出收敛性。当我们将全国划分为东部地区和中西部地区后,我们发现东部地区经济增长收敛,而中西部地区经济增长不收敛。Blinder—Oaxaca分解结果显示,中西部地区与东部地区经济发展差距扩大的最主要原因是中西部地区实物资本投资不足。随着改革开放的深入,外商直接投资和开放程度在地区差距中发挥的作用越来越大,而教育和地理位置的优惠政策的作用则越来越小。     

Fiscal Decentralization and Economic Growth in China, 1994–2002

The question of whether fiscal decentralization has affected economic growth since the 1994 fiscal reform in China is interesting to both policy makers and economists. Using a simple model of endogenous growth that incorporates spending by different levels of government, and a panel data set for 30 provinces for the period of 1994–2002, this paper finds that fiscal decentralization contributes significantly to economic growth. This finding is consistent with the theoretical prediction that fiscal decentralization can increase economic efficiency. In addition, this paper attempts to investigate how the relationship between fiscal decentralization and provincial growth differs in the different regions considered. For this purpose, the 30 Chinese provinces and regions are categorized into three conventional economic belts that comprise the eastern, central, and western areas. This study finds that the effects of fiscal decentralization on economic growth vary among these three regions.     

Policies employed by the FRG in order to exemplify political conditions for trade with socialist countries∗

Abstract

Unlike most previous works which commonly define globalization as a strict economic characteristic, using the overall globalization index and its three sub-dimensions – economic, social and political integrations to proxy openness, this paper examines the effect of globalization on economic growth associated with autocratic institutional in China, using the a two-step dynamic panel generalized method of moments technique in a panel of 30 provinces, municipalities and the autonomous regions over the period of 1970–2006. We find that different globalization indices have different impacts on regional economic growth. Also, autocracy may harm regional development, but these conclusions are very sensitive to different globalization variables specifications. Further, considering the interactive effects between globalization and economic growth, we show that in the period of higher global integration, the higher democracy (lower autocracy) may harm economic growth in the case of China. We emphasize that democracy is clearly not a necessary condition for the purpose of economic growth in China.     

对外贸易、市场整合与地区经济增长——基于bootstrap面板因果检验

本文利用省级面板数据首先证实对外贸易、市场整合与地区经济增长存在收敛的趋势,中部地区的市场整合程度高于东、西部地区。在此基础上,运用bootstrap面板因果检验按东、中、西3个区域面板重点分析个体省份对外贸易、市场整合与地区经济增长的关系。结果表明,对外贸易和市场分割有助于省域经济增长,不同区域均存在对外贸易替代区际贸易的倾向。沿海地区对外贸易在促进地区经济增长的同时缺乏经济发展反哺对外贸易的循环机制,内陆部分省份的对外贸易是经济增长的自然外溢。地区市场分割或整合是区域异质性下地方政府的人为策略。为了加快全国市场一体化建设,避免区域"马太效应"的扩大,应促使东部地区率先打破市场分割,中部地区的崛起也对此具有重要意义。     

教育结构与经济增长后劲的动态关联关系研究

文章利用中国30个省份1998-2012年的面板数据,建立内生分布滞后联立方程模型,研究了教育结构和经济增长后劲的动态关联关系。研究发现:教育结构对经济增长后劲在即期有显著的正的影响,之后转变为微弱的负影响,其累积影响始终为正;经济增长后劲在即期对教育结构有显著的正的影响,之后逐年下降收敛于0,其累积影响始终为正。研究结论表明,高等教育扩张并未对经济增长起到实质性的支撑作用。因此,应继续深化教育体制改革,强化人力资本与物质资本、技术等的耦合,努力实现教育与经济增长的协同发展。     

A new study of the Chinese regions in a neoclassical framework of models of growth

This study tests economic growth and convergence across the Chinese provinces during the period 1981–2005 based on augmented neoclassical growth models where land is included as a production input. A positive steady-state growth of per capita output cannot be sustained if the population growth rate or the output elasticity of land is sufficiently high. The study implements a panel data approach and shows that land may have an output elasticity as high as 1/3, suggesting that the natural environment indeed poses an important constraint on China's economic growth. In this study of the Chinese provinces, the panel data approach has implied much higher rates of conditional convergence in per capita output, compared with cross-section estimations.     

New evidence on the role of regional clusters and convergence in China (1952–2008)

A new panel method is applied to the case of Chinese provinces to analyze the existence of club convergence in terms of per capita income, labor productivity, and capital intensity, from 1952 to 2008. The advantage of this approach is that it takes into account the heterogeneity of Chinese regions in a nonlinear time-varying framework, where more attention is paid to the spatial dimension. This time-varying approach outperforms other methods used in the relevant literature for an economy in transition, such as China, that has undergone a significant transformation over the period under consideration. Our results indicate that Chinese regions have converged into clubs. However, it is observed that Heilongjiang is diverging in terms of labor productivity and capital intensity, while Liaoning and Guizhou display similar patterns in terms of labor productivity, and Shanxi and Hebei in terms of capital intensity. These results indicate that specific economic packages need to be implemented in the clusters that were identified, with special attention to those regions that show a divergence behavior, in order to guarantee the sustainability and equality of regional growth.     

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.     

南北经济收敛性与共同富裕

区域经济收敛有利于协调区域发展,从而有助于实现我国共同富裕的奋斗目标。然而我国幅员辽阔,区域经济差距由来已久。当下,从GDP总量的角度来看,我国区域经济格局呈南北经济差距扩大的态势。文章利用我国284个地级市文章中的284个地级市还包括4个直辖市。2000—2019年面板数据,探析了南北经济差距演变情况。首先,基于σ收敛和dagum基尼系数分析了人均实际GDP演变特征;其次,构建β收敛模型分析了南北经济收敛性,并考察了人力资本、物质资本、技术水平、对外开放和财政支出对南北经济收敛的影响;最后,文章从共同富裕的视角,对我国西南、西北和东北地区与其他地区的经济收敛性进行探讨。研究发现:(1)南北区域经济存在显著的俱乐部效应,南方内部经济由收敛演变为不具有显著收敛特征,而北方内部经济差距均呈收敛趋势;(2)适度的人力资本的流动不会导致经济发散,物质资本总体上延缓区域经济收敛速度,财政支出对区域经济收敛的作用有限,而技术水平和对外开放对经济收敛速度的影响不稳定;(3)从实现共同富裕的总体目标来看,西北地区的经济表现与其他地区存在显著差异,东北和西南的小部分区域也需要引起一定的重视。对此文章提出合理化建议,以期更好实现共同富裕目标。     

环境污染、能源消费与经济增长

在控制了资本和劳动力变量的基础上,构建了多变量VAR模型,考察了1989—2009中国及分区域在环境污染、能源消费和经济增长之间的动态因果关系。结果表明：对全国来说,分别存在从环境污染到经济增长、从环境污染到能源消费以及从能源消费到经济增长的三个单向因果关系。分区域看,东部沿海地区存在从经济增长到能源消费和从环境污染到能源消费的单向因果关系,环境污染和人均实际GDP之间不存在因果关系;中部地区存在从能源消费到经济增长的单向因果关系,环境污染和经济增长之间以及环境污染和能源消费之间存在双向因果关系;西部地区显示能源消费与经济增长之间不存在因果关系,但存在环境污染和能源消费的双向因果关系和从经济增长到环境污染的单向因果关系。此外,实证结果表明能源消费与经济增长关系的假说一中性假说、增长性假说和保护性假说在东部、中部和西部地区依次成立,即支持了本文所构建的基于EKC的环境污染、能源消费与经济增长分析框架。