高等教育提升全要素生产率的作用机制

The Mechanism for Higher Education to Improve Total Factor Productivity

创新驱动就是全要素生产率驱动。基于2004—2018年省级面板数据对高等教育数量与质量影响全要素生产率作用机制进行研究,发现二者均能促进全要素生产率的增长,且高等教育质量的作用更大;高等教育数量和质量对全要素生产率的影响存在地区异质性以及时间异质性;高等教育数量与质量对全要素生产率的贡献分别集中在技术效率变动与技术进步,且会通过不同路径分别影响技术效率变动与技术进步。高等教育数量既直接影响技术效率变动,也会通过增加人力资本存量,进而影响技术效率变动,而高等教育质量通过提升创新能力促进技术进步。为助力经济发展新格局的形成,提升我国的全要素生产率,应适度扩大高等教育规模,提升高等教育质量,保证高等教育在区域间协调发展。

Innovation-driven development indicates the development driven by total factor productivity. This study,based on the provincial panel data from 2004 to 2018,aims to explore the mechanism for the quantity and quality of higher education to affect total factor productivity. The authors find the following:The quantity and quality of higher education can both promote the growth of total factor productivity,but the quality of higher education plays a greater role;there is regional and temporal heterogeneity in how the quantity and quality of higher education affect total factor productivity;and the contributions made by the quantity and quality of higher education to total factor productivity focus on the change of technical efficiency and technical progress,and will affect them through different channels. The quantity of higher education not only directly affects the change of technical efficiency,but also affects it by means of increasing the stock of human capital,whereas the quality of higher education merely promotes technical progress by means of improving innovation skills. To establish a new pattern of economic development and improve China’s total factor productivity,we are supposed to properly expand the scale of higher education,improve its quality,and ensure its regional coordinated development.