走出统一增长模型的史实困境——基于技术创新的社会分层和文化分析

Getting through the History Dilemma of Unified Growth Model:An Investigation into the Social Class and Culture Based on Technology Progress

统一增长模型对教育投资回报上升和技术进步良性互动的预测与英国工业革命前的欧洲并不一致。但是,如果从社会分层的角度看,以发明家和工业家为代表的英国中产阶级人力资本提升速度最快,而且由于人口结构效应和模仿学习等,英国中产阶级人口数量在工业革命前和工业革命中相对扩大。再加上价值观等文化因素对人力资本概念的扩展,英国中产阶级人力资本提升和技术进步的关系与统一增长模型的契合度上升了。此外,本文还讨论了启蒙运动和一系列学会研究会的活动形成的创新性的社会氛围,认为其导致了更多的技术进步。

Unified Growth Model predicts there is the positive interaction between the increased return of education and technological progress, while this prediction is not consistent with the evidence before and after the Industrial Revolution in England. However, from the perspective of social stratification, inventors and industrialists were the representative of the British middle class, their human capital had been fast enhanced. And due to the effects of population structure and behaviors of learning and imitating, the number of middle class people expanded relatively in Britain before the In- dustrial Revolution. In addition, the concept of human capital expanded by cultural values is helpful to match the unified growth model. At last, the paper also discusses the innovative social atmosphere which can lead to more technological advances from the Enlightenment and series of activities of the research institutes.