Sources of China's Economic Growth, 1952-99 : Incorporating Human Capital Accumulation

Wang, Yan ; Yao, Yudong

World Bank, Washington, DC

关键词: ABSOLUTE POVERTY;    ABSOLUTE TERMS;    AGED;    AGGREGATE OUTPUT;    AGGREGATE PRODUCTION FUNCTION;   

DOI  :  10.1596/1813-9450-2650
RP-ID  :  WPS2650

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: World Bank Open Knowledge Repository

【 摘 要 】

China's performance in economicgrowth, and poverty reduction has been remarkable. There isan ongoing debate about whether this growth is mainly drivenby productivity, or factor accumulation. But few paststudies have incorporated information on China's humancapital stock, and thus contained an omission bias. Theauthors construct a measure of China's human capitalstock from 1952 to 1999, and, using a simple growthaccounting exercise, incorporate it in their analysis of thesources of growth, during the pre-reform (1952-77), and thereform period (1978-99). They find that the accumulation ofhuman capital in China (as measured by the average years ofschooling for the population aged 15 to 64) was quite rapid,and contributed significantly to growth, and welfare. Afterincorporating human capital, they also find that the growthof total factor productivity, still plays a positive, andsignificant role during the reform period. In contrast,productivity growth was negative in the pre-reform period.The results are robust to changes in labor shares in GDP.The recent declining rate of human capital accumulation is acause for concern, if China is to sustain its improvementsin growth, and welfare in the coming decade. Funding forbasic education is unevenly distributed, and insufficient insome poor regions.