中国经济是否已经到达刘易斯拐点——基于边际生产力的实证检验

Has Chinese Economy Run into Lewis Turning Point:An Empirical Test Based on Marginal Productivity

论文利用第五次和第六次全国人口普查数据,将东部省份作为二元经济理论中工业部门的代表,在运用永续盘存法进行资本存量估计的基础上,应用边际生产力分析法,对中国是否到达刘易斯拐点进行了实证分析。结果发现,工业部门2010年的劳动边际生产力较2000有显著提高,推断出目前中国经济已经超越刘易斯拐点,这意味着我国的劳动力成本优势不在,劳动密集型产业竞争力下降。我国人口红利的逐步消失,除影响经济增长和国内企业的国际竞争力外,还会影响我国社会保障体系的可持续性,因此,加速产业结构升级、提高出生率和适当延长退休年龄,是缓解我国经济发展瓶颈的必要举措。

Based on data from the fifth and sixth National Census,the paper uses eastern provinces of China to represent industrial sectors in Dual Economy Theory and perpetual inventory method to measure capital stock.After that,marginal productivity method is used to conduct an empirical research on the definition of different stages in Chinese development.Results show that the marginal productivity of labor in the industrial sector increased significantly between 2000 and 2010,which indicates that the current Chinese economy has gone beyond the Lewis Turning Point.This means that China no longer possesses demographic dividend and the competitiveness of labor-intensive industry will decline.The decline in demographic dividend will influence not only economic growth and international competitiveness of domestic corporations,but the sustainability of social security system.In conclusion,accelerating the upgrading of industrial structure and increasing birth rate as well as appropriately extending retirement age will be necessary measures to alleviate the bottleneck of economy development.