生产率异质性、服务业“成本病”与经济增长

Productivity Heterogeneity, Cost Disease of Service Industry and Economic Growth

本文在一个均衡框架下重新构建了产业部门生产率增长对部门价格增长及名义产出增长影响的理论机制,通过产业部门的数据对理论进行实证分析,研究生产率增长较慢的部门是否存在价格攀升过快的服务业"成本病"问题和部门产出增长走向停滞的问题。结果表明,生产率增长缓慢的产业部门价格攀升过快的"成本病"问题在所有行业普遍存在,但行业间具有异质性特征。部门生产率的下降对产出增长具有显著抑制作用,尽管抑制作用会通过提高价格这一中介变量增加产出而有所缓解,但是生产率的下降对产出增长的净效应显著为负。因此,在新时代中国经济结构升级转型的关键时期,要警惕生产率增长缓慢的部门价格攀升过快,但也不必过分忧虑因大力倡导发展生产技术提高生产率使得本部门价格下滑过快、劳动力流失而面临增长停滞的问题。

This paper reconstructs a theoretical mechanism of the impact of productivity growth in the industrial sector on the growth of sector prices and nominal output under an equilibrium framework, and conducts an empirical analysis using the data from the industrial sector to examine whether the sector with slower productivity growth has the cost disease of the service industry with excessive price climbing and the stagnation of sector output growth. The results show that the cost disease of excessive price climbing in the industrial sector with slow productivity growth is common in all industries, but different industries have heterogeneous characteristics. The decline in productivity of the sector has a significant restraining effect on output growth, and although this effect is mitigated by rising output through the mediating variable of higher prices, the net effect of the decline in productivity on output growth is significantly negative. Therefore, in the critical phase of China’s economic structural upgrade and transformation in the new era, it is crucial to beware of the excessive price climbing in the sector with slow productivity growth, but it is unnecessary to pay too much attention to the rapid decline in prices, the loss of workers and the stagnant growth in the sector due to the development of production technologies to improve productivity.