Research On The Impact Of Technological Progress Bias On The Share Of Labor Income In China

According to the neoclassical theory of economic growth,it is a typical fact of economic growth that the share of factor income remains stable.However China's share of labor income has been declining since the 1990 s.Until 2007,the lowest level was 39.7%.Although China's share of labor income has increased since 2007,it is only about 47% by 2017,which is much lower than the 55%-65% that is the level in most countries in the world.According to input-output theory,the distribution structure of factor income mainly depends on the production structure and the production structure is closely related to factor input and technological progress.However,under the given conditions of factor endowment,technological progress does not necessarily improve the efficiency of each factor at the same speed.When technological progress has an asymmetric effect on the efficiency of different elements,technological progress shows a certain bias.Therefore,technological progress bias has an important impact on the change of labor income share.In view of this,this paper systematically analyzes the impact of China's technology bias on the share of labor income.The research contents and main conclusions are as follows:(1)This paper first analyzes the theoretical mechanism of the influence of technological progress bias on the share of labor income.Then,based on the whole data of China and provincial data from 1978 to 2017,the paper estimates the elasticity of substitution of capital labor factors with the three equation supply surface system and calculates China's technological progress bias index.Finally,on this basis,the change rate of labor relative income share is decomposed into technology progress bias effect and factor intensity effect.The main conclusions are as follows:(1)As for the elasticity of factor substitution,it shows that capital and labor elements are complementary in China.The estimation results of provincial data show that the substitution elasticity of capital labor factor in only a few provinces is a substitute relationship.(2)For technological progress bias,before 1984,China's technological progress showed the characteristics of labor bias.After 1984,China's technological progress showed the characteristics of capital bias most of the time.After 2008,technological progress shows a weak characteristics of labor bias.In terms of the characteristics of technological progress bias in different regions,the technological progress in the eastern region is less inclined to capital,and the technological progress in the central and western regions tends to be more capital oriented.(3)From the decomposition result of the change rate of labor relative income share,the change rate of labor relative income share is affected by the factor intensity effect and the technology progress bias effect.Among them,the effect of technological progress bias on the change of labor relative income share is relatively strong.(2)Technological progress bias is an important factor affecting the change of labor incomeshare.However,in order to improve the share of labor income,it is necessary to clarify the reasons for the bias of technological progress.Based on this,this paper first systematically analyzes the influence of price distortion of factors on technological progress bias.Then,this paper empirically analyzed the impact of factor price distortion on technological progress bias through panel data model and panel threshold model.The results show that:The relative price distortion of factors has a significant impact on technological progress bias,and there are obvious regional differences.The relative price distortion of factors in the eastern region has the least impact on the technological progress bias,followed by the central region,while the western region has the largest impact.The empirical analysis of panel threshold model shows that the effect of factor relative price distortion on technological progress bias is not a simple linear relationship,but a double threshold effect of factor and technology matching degree.This dual threshold constitutes a reasonable range of matching degree between elements and technologies.Within a reasonable range of matching degree between elements and technology,the effect of the relative price distortion of factors on technological progress bias is weak,but in the range below or above the reasonable range,the relative price distortion of factors has a strong effect on the technological progress bias.(3)In addition to the distortion of factors price,the technological progress bias is likely to generate spatial diffusion from developed areas to underdeveloped areas with the diffusion of technology.Therefore,this paper first makes a systematic theoretical analysis of the spatial diffusion of technological progress bias.Then,a panel smooth transfer model(PSTR)is constructed to test the non-linear characteristics of spatial diffusion of technological progress bias.The results show that under the condition of fixed factor endowment structure of economy,the technological progress bias will produce diffusion phenomenon with the spatial diffusion of technology.However,due to the digestion and absorption of the imported technology by the importing regions,the element bias of technology changes in the diffusion process.Therefore,the spatial diffusion of technological progress bias shows significant nonlinear characteristics.Moreover,when the mode of technological innovation is suitable,the digestion and absorption ability of the introduced area to the introduced technology is strong,and the original bias of the introduced technology will change greatly.At this time,the spatial diffusion effect of the technological progress bias is small;on the contrary,it is large.(4)Today,people invest a lot in human capital,there are great differences in individual's education level,skill mastery and work experience,so labor force shows obvious heterogeneity.Based on this,this paper analyzes the influence of technological progress bias on heterogeneous labor income share using data from 1996 to 2016.Through the empirical analysis of the dynamic panel model,the results show that technological progress bias has a significant negative impact on the overall share.Further empirical research through simultaneous equations shows that although the influence of technological progress bias on the share of labor income is negative as a whole,it is ultimately not conducive to the share of unskilled labor income,and ithas a positive effect on the share of skilled labor income.The reason why technological progress bias has such an asymmetric effect on skilled labor income and unskilled labor income is that with technological progress bias towards capital,the marginal output of capital increases relatively.On the one hand,enterprises use capital more to replace unskilled labor.On the other hand,in order to arrange production through effective combination of capital and skilled labor,enterprises also use more skilled labor.At the same time,enterprises have increased the wage premium of skilled labor.Thus,the technological progress bias has an asymmetric impact on the income share of skilled labor and unskilled labor.(5)China's share of labor income shows obvious regional differences.It is very important to explore the causes of regional differences in labor income share to solve the imbalance of factor income distribution in China.To solve this problem,this paper uses the Spatial Dubin Model(SDM)to analyze the spatial spillover effect and regional differences of the influence of technological progress bias on the share of labor income based on the data from 1996 to 2017.It turns out that at the national level,technological progress bias has a significant negative impact not only on the share of labor income in the region,but also on the share of labor income in neighboring areas.The results of regional studies show that there are obvious regional differences in the negative impact of technological progress bias on the share of labor income.In terms of direct effect,the negative effect in the east and central areas is significantly greater than that in the west.From the perspective of indirect effect,the negative effect of central and western areas is significantly greater than that of eastern areas.In terms of the total effect,the negative effect in the east and the central areas is significantly greater than that in the west.