Research On The Appropriate Path Of Technological Progress And Total Factor Productivity

The economy in China has changed from the stage of high-speed growth to the stage of high-quality development.Under the realistic background of the diminished demographic dividend and the weakened effect of resource reallocation,the change of economic growth mode to the intensive growth driven by total factor productivity and technological progress is the inevitable requirement of actively adapting to the new normal economy,breaking through the bottleneck of development and seeking high-quality development.The new growth theory emphasizes that endogenous technological progress is the source of economic growth,and technological progress becomes the key way to promote the transformation of economic growth mode by increasing total factor productivity.Therefore,it is particularly important and urgent to pay more attention to the formation of the mechanism and power source of technological progress.When inspecting a country's technological progress,we should first determine a country's technological progress model,not the technology itself.Based on the source of technological progress,paths of technological progress mainly include technology introduction and imitation as the extrinsic path and independent innovation and Catching-up as the intrinsic path.So which technological progress model can more effectively promote total factor productivity? Which technological progress strategy should China adopt to achieve technological convergence with frontier economies?Under the background of imbalance of regional factor endowment,marked “Matthew effect”,significant difference of industrial factor endowment structure and bias of technological progress in China,this paper takes factor endowment as the breakthrough point,and presents that the appropriate technological progress path matching factor endowment can effectively improve total factor productivity.More specificlly,under the hypothesis of neutral technological progress and biased technological progress,this paper presents the research hypothesis of the appropriate technological progress path which is beneficial to the promotion of TFP,and examines an empirical test by using the data of regional and industrial levels to explore the suitable technological progress strategy selection for the promotion of TFP in Chinese regions and industries.The main contents of this paper are as follows:From the theoretical research aspect,under the hypothesis of neutral technological progress,after using the North-South technological diffusion theory,it is pointed out that the key to select the appropriate technological progress path is to match the accumulation degree of factor endowment with the level of technological progress path.Based on the theory of technological progress bias,it is proposed that the matching of factor endowment structure and technological progress bias is the precondition for the path selection of appropriate technological progress.From the empirical research aspect,the econometric model is constructed to test the hypotheses empirically.At the national level,this paper examines the effects of independent innovation,technology introduction and imitative innovation on TFP enhancement and their regional differences as well as spatial spillover effect of technological innovation through using fixed effect model,instrumental variable estimation,robust correction estimation,dynamic panel data model and spatial panel data model.At the regional level,the dynamic panel threshold model is used to examine the threshold characteristics of factor endowments represented by human capital level,technological gap,economic development level and institutional environment.Based on the results of the dynamic panel threshold model,this paper designs a strategy of appropriate technological progress path selection that is suitable for the improvement of regional total factor productivity.At the industry level,the industry type is determined by the compatability between industry technology progress bias and the factor endowment structure by calculating the industry technology progress direction index.The static panel data model is used to test the effects of independent innovation,imitation innovation,technology introduction on TFP promotionof the industry which the industry technology progress bias and the factor endowment structure are compatible,or the industry which the industry technology progress bias and the factor endowment structure are not compatible.Based on the empirical regression results,this paper proposes the appropriate path selection of technological progress that is benificial to the industry TFP promotion.The conclusions drawn in this paper mainly include: different regions and industries should choose the appropriate path of technological progress to enhance TFP according to the accumulation of factor endowment and the upgrading of factor endowment structure.Empirical results show that technology introduction,independent innovation and imitative innovation have significant effects on the improvement of TFP promotion in China,and independent innovation and imitative innovation have significant direct,indirect and total spatial spillover effects on TFP promotion.There are regional differences in the effects of different technological progress modes on TFP.Independent innovation can only significantly promote TFP in eastern China,but the effect of independent innovation in central and Western China is not significant.The results of threshold regression at regional level also validate the theoretical hypothesis.Only when a region's factor endowment has surpassed the corresponding threshold with human capital level,economic development level,technology gap and institutional environment,then the independent innovation and imitative innovation can significantly promote TFP.In regions where cannot surpass the corresponding threshold,the independent innovation and imitative innovation do not have significant effect on promoting TFP.Therefore,Chniese regions are divided into core layer,periphery layer and middle layer,and the appropriate technological progress paths are different in different circles.At the industry level,by measuring the direction index of technological progress,and according to whether the technological progress bias matches the factor endowment structure,this paper analyzes the industries whose technological progress bias matches the factor endowment structure and the industries whose technological progress bias is unbalanced with the factor endowment structure.The empirical results show that independent innovation and imitative innovation play a significant role in promoting TFP of industries with matching factor endowment structure and technological progress bias,and independent innovation has a greater impact.Only imitative innovation has a significant effect on TFP promotion in industries with unbalanced factor endowment structure and technological progress bias.