技术差距与中国工业技术进步方向的变迁

The Technology Gap and The Shift of the Direction of Technology Progress in China

本文通过对中国工业行业1998-2016年技术进步的方向进行测度,发现2011年以前中国工业行业技术进步相对提高了资本的技术效率以及边际产出,而在2011年以后技术进步由资本偏向转变为劳动偏向,这也是导致中国劳动收入份额U型演变的关键因素之一。理论研究表明:与发达国家间技术差距的缩小是导致中国工业行业技术进步方向发生改变的重要因素。当与发达国家间技术差距较大时,中国工业行业技术进步以引进吸收国外先进技术为主,更加偏向资本。随着技术差距的缩小,中国逐步走向自主创新道路,技术进步会更偏向相对发达国家而言更为丰裕的劳动要素。基于省级面板数据的实证研究也表明,当技术差距较大时,经济开放程度是决定工业行业技术进步方向的关键因素,会通过促进资本增强型技术并抑制劳动增强型技术的方式,使技术进步偏向资本。而当技术差距缩小后,研发投入成为技术进步的主要来源,并且会使技术进步偏向劳动。因此,为进一步提高工业行业劳动收入份额,需要更加鼓励自主创新,注重引进人才和提高劳动者技能,促进劳动偏向性和技能偏向性技术进步。

The share of labor income has declined significantly in most countries and industries since the early 1980 s. There are many explanations for the decline of the labor share, one of which is the capital-biased technological progress. When the elasticity of capital-labor substitution is greater than one, the development of new or more efficient capital-intensive technologies will make firms use more cheap capital goods to replace labor, which will lead to a decline in the labor share. Then what kind of technological progress has led to the U-shaped evolution of the labor share in China in recent years?Based on the industrial data of China from 1998 to 2016, we measure the direction of technological progress during this period. We find that the technological progress of the industrial sector was biased towards capital during 1998-2011, which reduced the labor share. However, technological progress turned to be labor-biased after 2011, which increased the labor share. Therefore, the direction of technological progress in the industrial sector was consistent with the U-shaped trend of the labor share. However, the existing theories could not explain the shift of the direction of technological progress.Based on the theory of biased technological progress, we consider the impact of technology gap on the sources of technological progress in developing countries. When one country’s technological level is too far from the frontier, the cost of direct introduction and absorption of foreign technology is lower than the cost of R&D. Then firms in developing countries would choose to import equipment to improve their technological level. As developed countries have more advantages in capital-intensive technologies, the direct introduction and absorption of foreign technologies would lead to capital-biased technological progress in developing countries, which does not match the factor endowments. Closer to the world technology frontier, the developing countries would switch to an innovation-based strategy, increasing R&D input to promote technological level since the technology introduction cost is higher than the cost of R&D. This technological progress would correct the trend that deviated from the factor endowments, which will lead to skill-biased technological progress and even labor-biased technological progress in certain context.We use provincial panel data from 1998 to 2016 to empirically test the hypothesis above. We measure the technology gap from the frontier by the ratio of the real GDP per capita of each province in China to that of the United States, assuming that the United States is the frontier country in the world. Our results show that the impact of R&D and economic openness on the direction of technological progress changed significantly under different levels of the technology gap. When GDP per capita is lower than 13.02% of that of the United States, R&D investment does not significantly affect the direction of technology change. While export and import significantly promote capital-biased technological progress. However, when GDP per capita exceeds the threshold value, R&D investment significantly promotes labor-biased technological progress. The effect of export on the improvement of the relative technical efficiency of capital decreases and is no longer significant. However, the effect of import is still significant, but the marginal effect decreases. In addition, after exceeding the threshold value, the technology import contract is also an important factor to improve the relative technical efficiency of capital.Based on the conclusions above, we propose that the main reason for the transformation of technological progress in China’s industrial sector lies in the narrowing of the technology gap with developed countries, which makes the main source of technological progress in China’s industrial sector change from directly introducing and absorbing foreign technology through equipment import to mainly increasing domestic R&D investment, and then corrects the original direction of technological progress deviating from its own factor endowment.We propose the following policy implications to promote the labor-biased technological progress and then increase the labor share. First, China should insist on the innovation-driven strategy by increasing R&D investment and improving R&D efficiency. Second, China should change its technological introduction model by importing more high-quality intermediate products(parts, new materials) rather than production equipment, and making further research based on the factor endowments. Third, China should improve the skills of labor force to increase the effective supply of labor.