Study On The Influence Of Stock Of Human Capital To The Economic Growth Of The Yangtze River Delta Area

Yangtze River Delta, including two provinces and one city-Jiangsu, Zhejiangand Shanghai, covers an area of211000square kilometers, which accounts for2.2%of the country. It is the core zone of China’s economic development and has a veryimportant strategic position in future China’s modernization. Since the policy ofreform and opening up, China has kept rapid and sustainable economic growth for30years, to which Yangtze River Delta contributes the most. Especially in recent years,under the impetus of economic globalization, the economic development in YangtzeRiver Delta is really fast, and the finance, the foreign trade and the traditionalindustries achieve remarkable results. In1980, Yangtze River Delta’s per capita GDPwas124.2billion yuan, and in2011, Yangtze River Delta’s GDP was up to9979.97billion yuan, which is80times of the former one. Compared with the economicdevelopment level in our country, the level of Yangtze River Delta is significantlyhigher than the national average level, and is surely the leader in the economicdevelopment since the execution of the policy of reform and opening up. Theeconomic equilibrium and stability, and the fast development in Yangtze RiverDelta, is not only conducive to promoting regional economic and social development,improving the international competitiveness of China’s industries and enterprises, butalso maintaining social stability and international security. However, due to thegradual disappearance of the demographic dividend, the lack of new technologies, theirrational economic structure and some other factors, Yangtze River Delta’s economicgrowth is gradually slowing down. The quality and the speed of the growth rate of theeconomic development has gradually declined. Human capital is a favorable factor tosolve the problems of regional economic development. By studying the relationshipbetween capital and labor in Yangtze River Delta, it tries to solve problems, so as toeffectively promote regional economic growth, and reduce regional differences ineconomic growth. It attempts to start from studying the determinant of economic growth, which is human capital, in Yangtze River Delta, then analyzing the currentstock of human capital and the structure situation of Yangtze River Delta, figuring outthe interaction between human capital and economic growth, and eventually proposesthe main direction and the countermeasures for sustainable economic growth and theoptimization and upgrading of industrial structure.Firstly, it illustrates the connotation, characteristics and classification of humancapital, and then sorts out the previous studies of a large number of scholars on theformation of human capital, finds out that the factors affecting human capital stockand human capital structure mainly include five points and they are education,learning by doing, technological advances, economic environment, and socialatmosphere. It also comprehensively states the human capital theory of Schultz,Becker, Jacob Dennis and other famous economists, which lay a theoreticalfoundation for the later analysis. After that, it reviews the evolution of the history andthe current status of the human capital in Yangtze River Delta and its sub-region. Itanalyzes the formation process, the characteristics and the impact on economicdevelopment of human capital stock and the structure, and concludes the inspirationfrom the above.In the empirical analysis, based on the relevant research results, such as theachievements of Romer, Lucas, Spiegel, and Baynhamand, it firstly takes humancapital respectively as an exogenous variable and an endogenous variable to theregional economy growth, then builds the human capital and economicgrowth regression model. The two models are the improved Lucas Human CapitalSpillover Model and the improved Benham and Spiegel Model. Secondly, it explainsthe variables and the data. Thirdly, the two models are used for general human capitalreturn and idiosyncratic human capital return respectively to analyze the relationshipbetween human capital and economic growth in Yangtze River Delta, so as to get toknow the mechanism of human capital to the economic growth in the higher stage ofeconomic development of Yangtze River Delta. Finally, it conducts the empiricaltesting and the comparison on the general basic human capital analysis, the generalhuman capital cross-period analysis, the general urban and rural human capital structure classification analysis, and the fundamental heterogeneous human capitalanalysis of the human capital differences and the economic development problemsamong Yangtze River Delta, including Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Shanghai. It studies thethe relationship between human capital and economic development in Yangtze RiverDelta, and tries to analyze the mechanism of various types of human capital onregional economic development. Then, it conducts further research on how to increasethe stock of human capital, how to adjust the human capital structure, and how toimprove the quality of human capital in different areas with different economicstructure, while in the higher economic development stage. Finally, based on the mainconclusions of the study on the relationship between human capital and economicgrowth in Yangtze River Delta, and according to the results of theoretical andempirical research, it proposes the related policy recommendations on how to makehuman capital effectively promote the optimization and upgrading of industrialstructure in Yangtze River Delta and on how to promote the society and the economyto have fast, stable and balanced development.