刘易斯拐点、工资上涨与企业创新 阅读全文
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Title | Lewis Turning Point, Rising Wages and Firm Innovation
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作者 | 谢专 张晓波 |
Author | Zhuan Xie and Xiaobo Zhang |
作者单位 | 北京大学国家发展研究院 |
Organization | National School of Development, Peking University |
作者Email | zhuanxie2016@163.com;x.zhang@nsd.pku.edu.cn |
中文关键词 | 刘易斯拐点 工资上涨 企业创新 专利 |
Key Words | Lewis turning point; rising wages; firm innovation; patent |
内容提要 | 关于要素价格变化如何影响企业创新,理论上争论很大,实证证据也十分匮乏。中国到达“刘易斯拐点”后,工资出现快速上涨,为实证研究提供了很好的素材。本文通过将专利和企业数据结合起来,并借助“倍差法”思想和“工具变量法”等解决内生性问题,从实证角度回答了这一重要问题。研究发现工资上涨促进了企业创新,尤其是使得劳动力密集型企业技术进步比资本密集型企业更快。具体来说,“刘易斯拐点”后,劳动密集型产业比资本密集型产业的专利数量增长快2%;工资每上涨10%,前者比后者的专利数量增长快0.23-0.41%。本文结论启示政策制定者虽然工资上涨使得劳动密集型制造业丧失部分比较优势,但增强了其创新能力;政府可能不应补贴救助失去竞争力的企业,而应让它们在竞争中优势劣汰,最终实现产业转型升级。 |
Abstract | There is a large debate as to how factor scarcity shapes firm innovations in the literature. Since the mid-2000s, China has passed the “Lewis turning point” --- rapid wage escalation after surplus labor was exhausted. This paper examines whether labor scarcity induces or inhibits firm innovations based on a matched patent and firm database and using differences-in-difference and instrument variable estimates. It shows that rising wages have induced firms to innovate more to substitute increasingly more expensive labor. In particular, labor-intensive industries have secured more patents than their capital-intensive counterpart. In specific, after China reached the Lewis turning point, the growth rate of approved patents by labor-intensive industries outpaces that of capital-intensive ones by two percentage points. A ten-percent increase in wages (the actual annual growth rate) would widen the gap in number of approved patents between the two types of firms by 0.23-0.41%.Our analyses have some policy implications: rising wages make labor-intensive industries lose some comparative advantage, though meanwhile make them more innovative. The government should let firms that are losing comparative advantage compete to survive rather than subsidize them, which would help to upgrade industries. |
文章编号 | WP1125 |
登载时间 | 2016-11-04 |
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