中国高等教育规模扩展的实证研究

Empirical Study on Higher Education Expansion in China:From the View Point of Transition Economy

本文运用1 978-201 1年全国层面的宏观时间序列数据,实证估计并检验经济转型时期,中国高等教育规模与经济发展水平、人口、产业、劳动力市场、城市化水平及政策等因素的长期均衡关系。研究发现,工资水平与失业率是继人口、产业结构与恩格尔系数后,对高等教育规模扩展具有显著影响的因素。失业率的边际效应显著为正,平均工资水平的边际影响为负且绝对值大于失业率。城市化率对高等教育规模扩展具有显著的拉动作用且十分稳健。在逐步纳入毛入学率的影响因素后,我们发现经济发展水平对规模扩展的边际效应的绝对值不断减小且不再显著。据此,我们认为通过市场途径实现合理的高等教育规模扩展是一种更为有效的长期政策取向。

Using annual data for China over the period 1978-2011, the paper empirically studies higher education expansion model, focusing on how economic development, population, industry, labor market, urbanization and policy influence higher education expansion and their mechanism.. The study found that following the population, industry structure and the Engel coefficient, the wage level and the unemployment rate are factors, which have significant impacts on the expansion of higher education＇s scale. The marginal effect of unemployment is significantly positive, the marginal impact of the average wage level is negative and the absolute value is greater than the unemployment rate. Urbanization has a significant and very robust role in driving the expansion of the higher education＇s scale. After gradually incorporated into the gross enrollment rate factors, we found that the absolute value of economic development level on the marginal effect with expanding scale is decreasing continuously but not significantly. Therefore, we conclude that using market mechanism to achieve the expansion of higher education＇s scale is a more effective long-term policy orientation.