Human capital, economic growth, and regional inequality in China

We show how regional growth patterns in China depend on regional differences in physical, human, and infrastructure capital as well as on differences in foreign direct investment (FDI) flows. We also evaluate the impact of market reforms, especially the reforms that followed Deng Xiaoping's “South Trip” in 1992 those that resulted from serious hardening of budget constraints of state enterprises around 1997. We find that FDI had a much larger effect on TFP growth before 1994 than after, and we attribute this to the encouragement of and increasing success of private and quasi-private enterprises. We find that human capital positively affects output and productivity growth in our cross-provincial study. Moreover, we find both direct and indirect effects of human capital on TFP growth. These impacts of education are more consistent than those found in cross-national studies. The direct effect is hypothesized to come from domestic innovation activities, while the indirect impact is a spillover effect of human capital on TFP growth. We conduct cost-benefit analysis of hypothetical investments in human capital and infrastructure. We find that, while investment in infrastructure generates higher returns in the developed, eastern regions than in the interior, investing in human capital generates slightly higher or comparable returns in the interior regions. We conclude that human capital investment in less-developed areas is justified on efficiency grounds and because it contributes to a reduction in regional inequality.     

THE IMPACT OF DOMESTIC AND FOREIGN COMPETITION ON SECTORAL GROWTH: A CROSS‐COUNTRY ANALYSIS

This paper examines the impact of competition on the total factor productivity (TFP) of 21 manufacturing sectors in eighteen OECD countries over the period of time 1990–2006. We assume that the source of TFP growth can be either domestic or foreign innovation or technology transfer from the technological frontier. Trade openness, R&D, and human capital can have two effects: a direct effect on TFP (e.g., through innovation) and an indirect effect depending on the productivity gap between a given country and the technological frontier. We find that tougher domestic competition is always associated with higher sectoral productivity. Both import and export penetrations are positively associated with an increase of TFP. However, the channels through which higher TFP is materialized are different: export penetration works through level effect, while import penetration acts mainly when conditional on the level of technological development. The economical magnitude of the effect is not trivial.     

Direct effect of ownership and technology import: Firm level evidence from large and medium-enterprises in Shanghai

This paper explores the direct effect of ownership and technology imports under the framework of neoclassical economic theory. The econometric analysis is based on panel data from a random sample of large and medium-enterprises in Shanghai, during the period of 1998 to 2003. The results show that Sino-foreign joint ventures, Sino-foreign cooperative enterprises and foreign-funded enterprises (SANZI) enjoy higher labor productivity and total factor productivity (TFP) than domestic enterprises. Intra-firm diffusion of non-codified technology, proxied by ownership, is the main source of their better performance, whereas internally transferred codified technology makes little contribution to TFP. For state-owned enterprises, codified technology imports have significantly raised both labor productivity and TFP, but such positive effect is significantly dependent on the S&T human resource. In contrast, no evidence supports that introduction of foreign technology has enhanced the productivity in domestic nonstate-owned enterprises. The empirical results indicate that SANZI do not have a distinct advantage in their codified technology. In addition, inadequate investment in assimilation process and research and development together with inefficient management of science and technology activities, may impede the use of imported technology. __________ Translated from Jingji Yanjiu 经济研究 (Economic Research Journal), 2006, (3): 90–102     

国内研发投入、人力资本与OFDI逆向技术溢出效应

利用我国2005-2015年省际面板数据,引入国内研发投入、人力资本两个中介变量,通过中介效应模型检验了OFDI逆向技术溢出的直接效应与间接效应。结果显示,总体上我国OFDI未显现出积极的逆向技术溢出效应,而呈弱负效应,但通过以下两条路径会对全要素生产率产生一定正向效应,即“OFDI→国内研发投入→全要素生产率”和“OFDI→国内研发投入→人力资本→全要素生产率”;分区域看,东部地区OFDI的逆向技术溢出直接效应为负值,中部地区的正向直接效应最为显著,西部地区的OFDI逆向技术溢出直接效应未通过显著性检验。OFDI通过国内研发投入产生的间接效应,仅在西部地区较为显著;OFDI通过促进国内研发投入再带动人力资本产生的间接效应,在东中部为正、西部为负。     

FDI、环境规制与黄河流域城市绿色全要素生产率

文章利用黄河流域65个重点城市2001-2017年的面板数据,基于非径向、非角度SBM方向性距离函数的ML指数,测度城市绿色全要素生产率的动态变化情况,并在此基础上考虑区位、时期差异特征,实证研究外商直接投资(FDI)、环境规制对城市绿色全要素生产率的影响。结果显示:①2001-2010年,上游城市增长动力源于绿色技术效率,中下游城市源于绿色技术进步,2011年以来绿色全要素生产率普遍呈现增长趋势。②从全样本回归结果看,FDI全时段、第二阶段对绿色全要素生产率的影响为负,第一阶段正向影响源于绿色技术进步。环境规制具有显著的正向影响,第二阶段的影响系数略小,且对绿色技术效率的影响为负。③上游城市FDI在全时段、第一阶段影响为正,中下游城市在全时段、第二阶段影响为负,环境规制有正向影响,绿色技术效率提升仍是短板。相应提出以下政策建议:优化要素配置,注重规模效应,着力提升绿色技术效率;以"一带一路"倡议为引领,制定差异化引资战略,提高FDI质量和水平;健全生态环境与经济发展协同监控机制,保障经济绿色、健康、高质量发展;加强绿色科技研发、提高投资成效和金融服务水平。     

Production and Employment Impacts of Biotechnology —Input-output Analysis for Germany

Biotechnology is often regarded as a key technology with high potential for far-reaching social, environmental and economic impacts. Among others, the development and diffusion of biotechnology may have considerable economic effects on production and employment. This paper analyses the economic impacts of different prospective diffusion paths of biotechnology in some major application fields for Germany. Bottom-up technology information from the literature, expert judgements and explicit scenario assumptions for various impact factors are combined and integrated in an input-output framework to calculate direct and indirect production and employment effects. The impact on net production and employment differs greatly between the different application sectors and depends on the respective importance of the various impact mechanisms. The indirect economic effects are rather high and exceed the direct economic effects. These findings show the importance of a bottom-up approach as well as the consideration of the indirect economic effects for appropriate analyses of the impact of biotechnology.     

Changes in officials,total factor productivity fluctuation and government transformation: Evidence from Chinese prefecture cities

This paper investigates the interrelationships between changes in officials and total factor productivity (TFP) in China. The tournament competition for promotion results in a series of predicaments, such as excessive investment, duplicate construction, split regional markets and misallocations; these negative effects further inhibit local TFP. Local government transformation from driving investment to providing services can promote TFP. We use data from 230 prefecture cities between 1999 and 2013 and find the following: (a) in recent years with the process of government transformation, changes in officials have typically had less impact on TFP fluctuation than in previous years; (b) changes in officials mainly affect technology efficiency (TE) in TFP; and (c) the mediation model reveals that changes in officials' positions influences TFP through economic spillovers and tax competition. Overall, our paper offers novel evidence for the impact of government administration on productivity and technology development, which is significant for policy decisions during government transformation.     

Is Public Capital Productive in China? Evidence from a Panel of Chinese Provinces

In addition to the direct productivity effect, public capital also has an indirect effect on private capital stock and labor input. This paper offers an evaluation of both the direct and indirect effects of Chinese public capital by applying a trans-log aggregate production function including public capital stock to a panel of regional data from 1986–2009. Moreover, we calculate the impact of public capital on regional total factor productivity (TFP) performance by introducing a system GMM estimation. The results show that the output elasticity of Chinese public capital stock is significantly positive, but decreasing year on year, and public capital is found to be a substitute for labor but complementary to private capital input. Finally, public capital has a significant positive effect on regional TFP performance.     

Inside Europe: human capital and economic growth revisited

This paper investigates the impact of human capital on the process of innovation and technology catch-up in European Union countries. Based on the framework proposed by Benhabib and Spiegel (in: Aghion and Durlauf (eds) Handbook of economic growth, 1A, North-Holland, Amsterdam, 2005), a panel data model is estimated from 1950 to 2011 using the improved total factor productivity and human capital variables included in PWT 8.0. Following Vandenbussche et al. (J Econ Growth 11(2):97–127, 2006) we also analyse the differential impact of skilled and unskilled human capital on growth. The empirical analysis applies instrumental variables panel data methods which resolve the endogeneity bias. Our results show robust evidence of the significant direct and indirect effects of human capital on the process of total factor productivity (TFP henceforth) growth in euro area countries. When we analyse the impact of different kinds of human capital on different ways of increasing TFP we conclude that, regardless of academic level, the quantity of unskilled human capital boosts imitation in EU countries while, by contrast, highly qualified human capital is essential for growth through innovation.     

On the North-South trade in the Americas and its ecological asymmetries

There has been a long and intensive debate within the scientific community about the role of international trade in the development of countries. During the last decades, the focus of attention has moved from the pure economic level to the environmental aspects of international trade. Establishing a simplified system of North-South trade for one reference period (2003), this paper attempts to test empirically the extent of potential asymmetries with regard to extracted material flows, and contrasts the results with the economic benefits from trade (in terms of value-added). The South is thereby represented by a selection of Latin American countries (Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador and Mexico), the North comprises one of their main commercial partners, the United States. At the methodological level, a multi-regional input-output analysis is used as the tool of investigation. Results generally support the hypothesis that the South was feeding the North's societal metabolism. South-North material exports were 1.6 times larger than North-South material exports, resulting in a net deficit for the South of 324 million tons. Moreover, material intensity of exported commodities from the South was twice as high as that from the North. It is worth highlighting, however, that part of the North-South hypothesis fails for the sample of countries since the larger part of the economic surplus has remained in the South, contrarily to what would have been expected.     

Spillovers from Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Macau Investment and from Other Foreign Investment in Chinese Industries

In its analysis of the impact of foreign investment on China's productivity, this article develops two empirical models: one using labor productivity and the other using total factor productivity (TFP). Using cross-provincial data on Chinese industries for 1993, 1994, and 1997 to regress the empirical models, it is concluded that the impact of investment differed depending on its source, with that from these overseas Chinese enterprises contributing to the spillover effect in regions with a high technology gap, whereas that from other foreign enterprises tending to improve productivity and TFP primarily in regions with a low technology gap. (JEL D24 , F13 , F15 , L60 )     

金融发展与全要素生产率增长* ——基于中国省际面板数据的实证分析

本文以2000-2012年中国省际平衡面板数据为样本,从金融规模发展和金融效率发展两个维度衡量金融发展水平,实证检验金融发展与全要素生产率增长的联系以及中间渠道。研究结果发现,2000-2012年中国全要素生产率出现正增长且主要是由技术进步推动的;无论是从金融规模发展角度还是从金融效率发展角度去分析,都证实了金融发展显著地促进了全要素生产率的增长,金融效率发展的全要素生产率增长效应显著地高于金融发展规模的全要素生产率增长效应,且金融发展促进全要素生产率增长的中间渠道是技术进步效应而非技术效率增长效应;通过引入衡量金融发展缺陷程度指标（民间金融发展规模）,证实了中国金融发展体系效率低下。民间金融发展具有TFP增长效应,且民间金融发展TFP增长效应要显著地大于正规金融发展的TFP增长效应。     

Using panel VAR to analyze international knowledge spillovers

Technology diffusion often plays a critical role in models of trade and economic growth. Most existing empirical tests for international technology spillovers suggest some role for spillovers in explaining productivity growth. It has been relatively difficult, however, to identify separate roles for the direct and indirect channels of knowledge spillovers. The influence of these channels is often confounded owing to the focus on total‐factor productivity (TFP) and R&D spending within a cross‐section or panel data setting. This paper employs an alternative methodology to investigate the role of direct knowledge spillovers. Using citation‐weighted domestic patents, citation‐weighted foreign patents and value added for 14 U.S. manufacturing industries over the period 1977 to 2004 a panel VAR methodology is employed to investigate the dynamic role of direct and indirect knowledge spillovers. Evidence for the role of the direct knowledge spillovers channel is found—an increase in citation‐weighted patents abroad directly increases the measure of domestic citation‐weighted patents, after accounting for the influence of productivity/value added. The role of foreign innovative activity, however, is small relative to the role of U.S. innovative activity in explaining the dynamics of industry value added.     

Intellectual property rights, multinational firms and economic growth

This paper develops a model of North-South trade with multinational firms and economic growth in order to analyze formally the effects of stronger intellectual property rights (IPR) protection in developing countries. In the model, Northern firms invent new higher-quality products, multinational firms transfer manufacturing operations to the South and the Southern firms imitate products produced by multinational firms. It is shown that stronger IPR protection in the South (i.e., the adoption and implementation of the TRIPs agreement) leads to a permanent increase in the rate of technology transfer to the South within multinational firms, a permanent increase in R&D employment by Southern affiliates of Northern multinationals, a permanent decrease in the North-South wage gap, and a temporary increase in the Northern innovation rate.     

Economic growth and poverty traps in sub-Saharan Africa: The role of education and TFP shocks

This paper investigates the “education-total factor productivity trade-off” in explaining income per worker differences between sub-Saharan (unlucky) and G7 (lucky) economies. First, we examine the dynamics of average years of schooling (i.e. education), capital per worker, income per worker, and total factor productivity (TFP) across sub-Saharan and G7 countries. We confirm that physical capital and education levels partially explain income per worker differences between lucky and unlucky economies. Second, we undertake a novel examination of the impact of technology shocks on income per worker, with the goal of understanding the role of technology variation in causing cross-country income per worker differences, and as a potential contributor to overall slow growth in the sub-Saharan region. In a vector autoregressive (VAR) framework, we show that the impact of “ad hoc” TFP shocks on income per worker is larger in unlucky economies than in lucky ones. We observe that average TFP volatility in the “unlucky world” is eight times higher than in the “G7 world”. We argue that the order of magnitude of the impact heavily depends on the level of the TFP volatility. Last, we suggest that the documented differences in the amount of physical capital and in the productivity of human capital between these two regions add conceptual support for the existence of poverty traps for sub-Saharan Africa.     

技术吸收能力对技术溢出和全要素生产率的影响——基于1995—2009年中国省区面板数据

利用1995—2009年我国28个省(自治区、直辖市)的面板数据,采用数据包络分析法,实证检验了地区的技术吸收能力对地区获得的技术溢出及其全要素生产率的影响。研究表明:省际技术溢出以及来自进出口贸易、FDI和ODI渠道的技术溢出都是影响地区TFP及其分解变量——技术进步、技术效率的重要因素;人力资本、制度因素、技术差距和吸收能力综合变量通过与技术溢出发生交互作用,对地区TFP、技术效率和技术进步产生显著影响。     

行业差异和FDI对全要素生产率的影响——基于中国大中型制造业的实证分析

利用2006—2010年我国27个大中型制造业行业的时间序列数据,运用面板回归方法对概念模型进行实证检验,探讨了创新资源和行业结构对TFP的直接影响作用,并将FDI作为中介变量纳入研究模型,分析了创新资源和行业结构通过影响FDI进而对TFP产生的间接影响。结果表明:财力资源、市场化程度和经济外向度对FDI流入有显著的正向影响;FDI对TFP有正向作用,但弹性系数较小。     

科技金融对制造业结构优化的双重效应研究——基于省级制造业面板数据的GMM估计

科技金融为我国产业升级带来新的发展机遇,制造业作为经济发展的核心,其结构优化升级是否受科技金融的影响值得探索。采用2010—2016年我国省级制造业细分行业数据,从合理化、高级化角度考察科技金融对制造业结构的直接效应和间接效应。结果发现,科技金融对制造业结构合理化和高级化具有直接促进作用,同时其直接影响具有地区异质性。从合理化角度,科技金融对沿海地区制造业结构合理化的影响程度低于内陆地区;从高级化角度,科技金融能够显著促进沿海地区制造业结构高级化,对内陆地区的影响则不显著。另外,通过分析科技金融对制造业结构优化的间接影响发现,技术创新和要素市场发育在科技金融对制造业结构优化的影响过程中发挥积极中介作用。     

Imports and TFP at the firm level: the role of absorptive capacity

This paper estimates the effect of the decision to import intermediate goods and capital equipment on Total Factor Productivity (TFP) at the firm level on a panel of Spanish firms (1991–2002). We use two alternative approaches. In the first, we estimate TFP and apply a diff‐in‐diff estimator with a control group constructed by propensity‐score matching. In the second, direct method, we estimate TFP with imported inputs as a state variable in one stage. Both approaches show that the effect of a firm's decision to source intermediates and capital equipment abroad on its TFP depends critically on its capacity to absorb technology, measured by the proportion of skilled labour.     

财政科技支出对全要素生产率的影响及其机理分析

对2007—2017年我国全要素生产率的时序变化进行分析,再以省际面板数据为样本,探究财政科技支出对全要素生产率的影响及其作用机理。研究发现,财政科技支出对全要素生产率增长具有正向驱动效应,且这种正向驱动具有显著的动态效应和区域异质性、市场异质性。具体表现为:我国的东部地区最为显著,中部地区最小;市场化程度高的省(区、市)最为显著,市场化程度低的省(区、市)相对较弱。进一步检验发现,财政科技支出主要通过提升技术创新水平、抑制产业结构偏离促进全要素生产率增长。基于此,我国要进一步健全财政科技投入体系,有效加强对创新活动的支持力度,坚定不移地推进市场化改革,提升中西部地区的市场化水平,同时财政科技支出适度向非国有企业倾斜,有效提升财政科技支出的靶向性。