Research On The Mechanism Of Total Factor Productivity Improvement In Chinese Enterprises

Endogenous growth theory proposed that a country's economy long-term sustainable growth depends on its total factor productivity(i.e.,technological progress).Labor quality is one of the decisive factors affecting a country's total factor productivity level,as well as the leading strength for developing countries to achieve economic catching-up.Benhabib and Spiegel(1994,2004)pointed out that the labor quality influenced total factor productivity by direct and indirect mechanisms.On the one hand,labor quality directly affects total factor productivity by determining a country's domestic technological innovation ability;On the other hand,labor quality indirectly affects total factor productivity by influencing a country's absorptive capacity of international technology spillover.So with the rising status of the China in trade,how is the relationship between the quality of labor and total factor productivity?Does labor quality promote the improvement of China's total factor productivity by the two mechanisms?The important indicators of labor quality is the labor skill structure,namely the ratio of the enterprise's skills labor and unskilled labor.This article will impact on the mechanism and effect between total factor productivity with labor skill structure as a research subject,in order to answer these questions.Based on China employer-employee survey data,the dissertation empirically examined the casual effect between labor skill structure,i.e.the proportion of skilled labor force and unskilled labor force of an enterprise,and TFP.Empirical Results by OLS regression and instrumental variables method show that upgrading labor skills structure of enterprise will strongly promote TFP of manufacturing enterprises under current economic environment.In the absence of sufficient technological innovation capability under existing conditions,Chinese enterprises focus not only on improving technical efficiency,but also absorbing and imitating international technology frontier.Different with unskilled labor,the main role of skilled labor is in the absorption and imitation of international advanced technology.The increasing of the proportion of skilled labor is conducive to business expansion outwards from the optimal production frontier of existing technical conditions,thus promote technological progress.The dissertation raised three proposals as incentives for both employers and employees,including establishing association between the number of skilled labor and the amount of taxation remission and making a long-term development plans for skilled employees.This dissertation is divided into seven chapters:the first chapter mainly elaborates the background and significance of the research question,research ideas,research methods and innovation points,a preliminary research starting point.The second chapter review on the theory and literature review part,summarizes the shortcomings of existing studies,and further expounded in this dissertation,we study motivation.In the third chapter,the Malmquist index method of DEA method is used to calculate and analyze the present situation of total factor productivity and labor skill structure of Chinese enterprises,and prepare for the empirical analysis below.The fourth chapter empirically the role of labor ability structure in total factor productivity improvements effect and mechanism of action.To ensure the robustness of the empirical results,using the least square method and join the instrumental variable two-stage least squares regression analysis.Basic conclusion of the fifth chapter summarizes the full text,points out the deficiency of the study and put forward the corresponding policy recommendations.