人力资本对经济增长的贡献:理论与方法

The Development of Human Capital and Economic Growth Theory

人力资本作为经济增长的重要驱动力,存在于众多经济增长理论模型和实证研究当中,而学界对于人力资本的衡量方法和影响机制一直处于探索之中。一般来说,社会科学理论的进展与方法的改进相辅相成,理论指引着实证方法的使用和改进,方法的完善也应该能够促进理论的推陈出新。本文梳理了人力资本对经济增长贡献相关的理论与实证研究,聚焦于人力资本的思想诞生、度量方法和经济价值三方面,试图从宏观层面来分析不同时期人力资本要素在经济增长过程当中所扮演角色的历史演进及其内在逻辑,并讨论人力资本理论与其实证方法论的关系。

Human capital as a critical engine for economic growth is present in many theoretical models and empirical researches of economic growth.However,their conclusions on its measurement method and impact mechanism remain inconclusive.Generally speaking,the progress of social science theory and the improvement of methods complement each other.The collision of the theory leads to the improvement of empirical methods.The test for methods is also conducive to the innovation of the theory.Therefore,this article provides the theoretical and empirical researches related to the contribution of human capital to economic growth.Literatures are reviewed from the birth of human capital theories,the measurement methods of human capital,and the economic value of human capital.We attempt to analyze the historical evolution of the role of human capital in the process of economic growth at different stages and its inherent nature and discuss the relationship between human capital theory and empirical methodology.