劳动成本对中国木材加工业国际竞争力的动态影响研究

Study on the Dynamic Impact of Labor Cost on the International Competitiveness of Chinese Timber Processing Industry

基于从业人员实际月报酬、单位劳动成本角度,应用状态空间模型和Kalman滤波算法,测度劳动成本对中国木材加工业国际竞争力的动态影响,结果表明:1992~2011年间,实际月报酬对木材加工业国际竞争力呈"先降后升再降"的正向影响特征;单位劳动成本对木材加工业国际竞争力呈"先降后升"的负向影响特征。因此,中国木材加工业应构建以单位劳动成本为核心的国际竞争战略,建立以"高劳动报酬、高生产率"为特征的劳动成本新优势。

⑴Background——The academia generally believes that the low labor cost is the key factor to our country's international competitiveness of timber processing industry.Chinese timber processing products have been dominated in the international market since 21st century based on the competitive advantages in low cost of labor and low productivity level.However,with the rapid growth of Chinese labor cost,the politicians,entrepreneurs and academics worry that the impact of the labor cost change on the export trade or international competitiveness would have an effect on the forestry industry and then might weaken the international competitiveness of Chinese timber processing industry.But most of the previous documents mainly use OLS and panel data model to measure.They study on the average effect of labor cost on the international competitiveness of one industry in sample time and belong to the category of static estimation.There are still no documents considering the dynamic features of the power or direction of the labor cost that influences the international competitiveness from the aspect of unit labor cost(ULC).⑵Methods——Select relevant data from the UN Comtrade Database,WTO Database,China Statistical Yearbook of 1993 to 2008 and China labor Statistical Yearbook of 1993 to 2012.It is analyzed the dynamic influences of the actual monthly payment and ULC at different time on the international competitiveness of timber processing industry by using the time varying parameter state space model and Kalman's filter algorithms.Study on the dynamic impact of labor cost on the international competitiveness of Chinese timber processing industry.⑶Results——First,from 1992 to 2011,Chinese timber processing industry is actually faced with the rapid growth of the labor cost getting from the absolute amount of the actual monthly payment,but seeing from the unit labor cost,the UCL isn't increased but decreased from 1992 to 2007 which indicates that the real labor cost of Chinese timber processing industry is declining while it begins to have a rising trend in fluctuation from2008.That's what we should pay attention to.Second,although the study is not in line with some researchers,it is more reliable based on the data and methods.The workers'actual monthly payment has significantly positive effects on the international competitiveness of Chinese timber processing industry.The conclusion that the change feature of the influence coefficient generally falls at first,and then rises and falls again is more aligned with the economic reality.Third,the ULC which can show the real labor cost of the timber processing industry has significantly negative effects on the international competitiveness of Chinese timber processing industry.The effect intention has the change feature of falling first and then rising which is the part that researchers study little,so the research conclusion has great practical guiding significance.⑷Conclusions and Discussions——The research shows that the rising labor cost is beneficial to promoting the industry's international competitiveness,so controlling the absolute growth of the labor payment is not an effective way to remain or promote the international competitiveness of Chinese timber processing industry.Now under the conditions that Chinese labor supply is no more infinite,the timber processing industry is entering a high labor payment age.The timber processing enterprises should abandon the international competitiveness strategies which are strict and purely focused on the labor payment,and construct the international competitiveness strategies which regard the unit labor cost as the core matter to ensure the sustained moderate growth of the workers'labor payment and welfare in enterprises.The research also suggests that the decline of the ULC at least is one of the important reasons why the international competitiveness of Chinese timber processing industry promotes.Therefore,the more important task of Chinese timber processing industry is to find ways to decrease ULC to accelerate the shift from the old trade mode based on the cheap labor to the new trade mode based on the productivity.The source of productivity improvement should gradually replace the source of demographic dividend.It is going to form a new advantage of labor cost which is featured with high labor payment and high productivity and build a high labor payment age to remain the new source of international competitiveness of timber processing industry.