人口红利贡献被高估了吗?——基于人力资本积累视角的研究

Is the Demographic Dividend Overvalued:Research Based on the Perspective of Human Capital Accumulation

人口红利下降被认为是新常态下中国面临的重大挑战,然而劳动投入不仅包含劳动数量,还包含劳动质量,分别对应于人口红利与人力资本。由于在测量上忽视了高速城市化对人力资本积累的积极影响,在机制上忽视了人口红利和人力资本分布趋同的叠加影响,容易造成人口红利贡献高估且人口资本贡献低估。文章从人口迁移视角出发,参考拉姆齐无限期界模型建立人力资本积累方程,将城市化对人力资本积累的积极作用纳入分析,得出转换效应、迁移效应和共振效应,阐明人口红利和人力资本空间分布趋同的微观机制,得到检验人口红利和人力资本对经济增长贡献的一致性框架。以2013-2016年272个样本城市进行计量检验:固定效应回归分析和内生性检验表明人口红利和人力资本的增长弹性排序不确定,中介效应检验表明人力资本的增长贡献超过人口红利,分组检验进一步证实人力资本贡献超过人口红利,且存在相互叠加共同影响城市经济增长的共振效应。结论表明,若充分考虑城市化对人力资本的积极影响,则人口红利的贡献确实被高估,而人力资本的贡献被低估。由此得出政策建议,应持续推进城市化高质量发展,加速人力资本积累,构筑劳动质量替代劳动数量的机制,以更好地应对新常态下人口红利下降的负面冲击。

The decline in demographic dividend is often considered to be a major challenge for China now under the background of new normal of China’s economy.However,the input of labor includes not only labor quantity input,but also labor quality input,which corresponds to the contribution of demographic dividend and the contribution of human capital to the growth of economy respectively.Due to the neglect of the positive impact of urbanization which is growing at high speed on the accumulation of human capital accumulation in measurement,and the neglect of the overlapping impact of demographic dividend and the impact of human capital distribution convergence in mechanism,it is easy for us to overestimate the contribution of demographic dividend and underestimate the contribution of human capital to the growth of economy.In the theoretical model construction part of this paper,from the perspective of population migration,this paper establishes the equation of human capital accumulation with reference to Ramsey’s infinite bound model,and analyzes the positive effect of urbanization on human capital accumulation.this paper also obtains the transfer effect,migration effect and resonance effect,and then clarifies the micro mechanism of convergence of demographic dividend and human capital spatial distribution,and finally obtain the consistency framework to test the contribution of demographic dividend and the contribution of human capital to the growth of economy.In order to prove our theory,we then carry out an empirical study in this paper.This paper uses 272 sample cities from 2013 to 2016 to conduct measurement and test.In the analysis part of empirical research results,the fixed effect regression analysis and endogenous test show that the order of the contribution elasticity to economic growth of population dividend and human capital is uncertain.We also have a discovery that the test ofintermediary effect shows that the growth contribution of human capital exceeds that of demographic dividend,and the test of grouping further proves that the contribution of human capital exceeds that of demographic dividend to the growth of economy.Through the research of this paper,we also find that there is a resonance effect of mutual superposition on urban economic growth.Finally,we come to the conclusion that if we can fully take the positive impact of urbanization on human capital into our consideration,we will find that the contribution of demographic dividend is indeed overestimated,while the contribution of human capital is underestimated.Therefore,it is suggested that we should continue to promote the high quality development of urbanization.It is also suggested that we should accelerate the accumulation of human capital,and build a new mechanism of labor quality instead of labor quantity,so as to better cope with the negative impact of the decline of demographic dividend under the new normal.