教育回报率显著高于资本回报率的实证分析——基于1978年以来我国宏观教育回报率的测算

An Empirical Analysis of the Fact That the Returns to Education Are Significantly Higher Than the Return of Capital:Based on the Estimation of the Macroeconomic Returns to Education in China Since 1978

教育是人口高质量发展的核心推动力,投资教育就是投资未来。我国数十年持续增加的教育投资究竟带来了多高的经济回报,教育投资的回报是否比基础设施、设备投资等物质资本投资显著更高,这是关乎教育事业长远发展亟待回答的重大问题。通过把教育投资类比于宏观经济的固定资产投资,探析全社会每增加一单位教育投资带来的长期经济增长回报的宏观教育回报率发现,1978—2020年,我国宏观教育回报率为20.7%,取得了较高的投资收益。当前,我国高中、大学和研究生阶段的宏观教育回报率分别为27.1%、20.9%和21.6%,显著高于2019年国际货币基金组织测算的中国经济5%的物质资本投资回报率。实证研究结果表明,我国的教育投资有效对冲了人口结构变化对经济造成的负面冲击。得益于人力资本和物质资本的互补性,宏观教育回报率没有出现边际递减现象,并显著高于物质资本投资回报率。相较于高等教育的发展,推动基础教育普及所产生的宏观经济增长效应最为显著。未来,我国应持续增加教育投资,提高教育投资占国内生产总值的比重,尤其关注基础教育阶段的普及,推动高中阶段教育全面普及,通过引导社会压缩一部分低效的物质资本投资,促进政府投资向教育领域转移,使教育投资更好地贡献于人的发展、经济的增长和社会的进步。

Education is the core driving force for the high-quality development of population, and investment in education implies investment in the future. It is an important question to be answered for the long-term development of education what economic return has been brought to China by the continuous increase in educational investment over the past decades, and whether the return on educational investment is significantly higher than that on physical capital investment, such as the investment in infrastructure and equipment. By comparing investment in education with investment in fixed assets, and exploring the macroeconomic returns to education in terms of the long-term economic growth resulting from each increased unit of educational investment in the whole society, this study finds that the years between 1978 and 2020 witnessed 20.7% of the macroeconomic returns to education in China, which showed high returns on investment. At present, the macroeconomic returns to education for upper secondary education, tertiary education and graduate education in China are 27.1%, 20.9% and 21.6%, respectively, which are significantly higher than 5%, the return on physical capital estimated in 2019 by the International Monetary Fund(IMF). Empirical studies show that China's educational investment has effectively mitigated the negative impact of demographic changes on the national economy. Thanks to the complementarity of human capital and physical capital, the macroeconomic returns to education failed to show a marginal decline and it was significantly higher than the returns to physical capital. Compared with the development of higher education, the macroeconomic growth resulting from the promotion of the popularization of basic education is the most significant. In the future, we need to increase educational investment, raise its proportion of the Gross Domestic Product(GDP), and preferably stress the popularization of basic education and increase the rate of the popularization of upper secondary education;and promote the transfer of government investment to education by directing social sectors to the decrease of inefficient investment in physical capital so as to make educational investment a better contribution to human development, economic growth and social progress.