劳动力成本抑制还是促进了服务业企业数字化转型?——兼论“鲍莫尔成本病”的克服

Do Labor Costs Inhibit or Promote the Digital Transformation of Service Enterprises?——Overcoming Baumol’s Cost Disease

基于2007-2020年沪深A股服务业上市公司样本,利用文本分析法测度企业数字化转型程度,实证检验劳动力成本对服务业企业数字化转型的影响、作用机制与经济效应。研究发现:从总体上来看,劳动力成本的提高能够倒逼服务业企业进行数字化转型,且这种倒逼效应在非国有企业、生产性服务业企业和高融资约束企业中更为明显。机制分析发现,当劳动力成本较低时,企业会通过降低资本劳动比来抑制服务业企业数字化转型;而当劳动力成本较高时,企业会提高资本劳动比来促进服务业企业数字化转型,两者之间呈现出先抑制后促进的“U”型变化趋势。劳动力成本上升所引致的劳动-资本替代机制、劳动力间替代机制是驱动服务业企业数字化转型的主要中介渠道,此外在要素市场发育更好、行业竞争程度更高的外部环境中,以及在劳动密集程度更高、研发投入更高的内部环境中,劳动力成本的提高对服务业数字化转型的促进效应更为明显。进一步分析发现,服务业企业的数字化转型产生的规模效应、分工效应、结构效应与赋能效应能够提高企业的全要素生产率。

Based on the sample of Shanghai and Shenzhen A-share listed service companies from 2007 to 2020,this paper uses text analysis method to measure the degree of digital transformation of enterprises,and empirically tests the influence,mechanism and economic effect of labor cost on the digit-al transformation of service enterprises.It is found that:in general,the increase of labor cost can force service enterprises to carry out digital transfor-mation,and this effect is more obvious in non-state-owned enterprises,producer service enterprises and enterprises with high financing constraints.The mechanism analysis shows that when the labor cost is low,service enterprises will reduce the capital-labor ratio to inhibit the digital transformation.However,when the labor cost is high,enterprises will increase the capital-labor ratio to promote the digital transformation of service enterprises,which shows a U-shaped trend of first inhibition and then promotion.Labor-capital substitution mechanism and labor substitution mechanism caused by rising labor costs are the main intermediary channels driving the digital transformation of service enterprises.In addition,in the external environment with bet-ter development of factor market and higher level of industry competition,as well as in the internal environment with higher labor-intensive and R&D in-vestment,the increase of labor cost has a more obvious promoting effect on the digital transformation of the service industry.Further analysis shows that the scale effect,division effect,structure effect and empowerment effect generated by the digital transformation of service enterprises can improve the to-tal factor productivity of enterprises.