Study On The Expansion Of China's Human Development Index From The Perspective Of New Development Concept

Since 1990,China has made great achievements in economic and social development,with the Human Development Index(HDI)rising from 0.499 in1990 to 0.761 in 2019.The HDI ranking in the international has risen from 102 nd to 85 th,achieving a leap from the low human development level group to the high human development level group.However,these development achievements are accompanied by a number of challenges such as increasing social differentiation,continuous deterioration of ecological environment,unbalanced development between regions,unbalanced development between urban and rural areas,emerging challenges in improving people's livelihood,and increasing international trade friction.In order to crack these development problems,enhance development momentum and build up development advantages,the Fifth Plenary Session of the18 th Central Committee put forward the new development concept of "innovation,coordination,green,openness and sharing" to promote high-quality development of China's economy and society through in-depth implementation of the new development concept.In this context,a set of human development index index system and calculation method suitable for China's national conditions are urgently needed to measure China's human development level,which can help to accurately analyze the problems in China's human development and make more effective macro policy suggestions to improve China's human development level.Accordingly,this paper focuses on the theme of "Human Development in China" and discusses the following five aspects.First,on the basis of the connotation of human development defined by UNDP,the connotation of human development in China is expanded based on the five development concepts of "innovation,coordination,green,openness,and sharing" and the connotation of high-quality development.Second,based on the connotation of human development in China defined in this paper and the HDI index system proposed by UNDP,a China Human Development Index(CHDI)index system with five dimensions of "life expectancy,education,income,sustainability,and livelihood" is constructed.Then,the weight distribution model of the five dimensions of CHDI is derived based on the dynamic factor analysis(DFA)model,and the specific calculation steps of CHDI are given.Third,based on the CHDI indicator system,the inequality adjustment model,the weight assignment model and the calculation steps of CHDI,the human development levels across the country from1990 to 2018 were measured,and the spatial and temporal evolution characteristics of China's human development levels were analyzed.Fourth,the convergence characteristics of CHDI in 31 provinces during 1990-2018 were examined,and the unbalanced degree of CHDI development in four regions in the east,west and northeast,as well as the unbalanced degree of CHDI development in two regions in the south and north were discussed using the Thiel index.Fifthly,the mechanism of the action of China's CHDI is analyzed based on two perspectives: the log-averaged Dirichlet index(LMDI)decomposition technique and the spatial econometric model.The results of the study are as follows.(1)During 1990-2018,China's human development index(CHDI)improved significantly,from 0.409 in 1990 to 0.696 in 2018.According to the UNDP's criteria for classifying the human development level classes,China's human development is about to cross over from the low human development level group to the high human development level group.There is both alpha convergence and absolute beta convergence in the CHDI for 31 provinces,with a catch-up effect of lagging provinces on developed provinces.Looking at the four regional levels of East,West and Northeast,the human development level continues to improve.The development level of the eastern region is significantly higher than the other three regions.The development gap between regions is gradually narrowing,but a certain degree of development imbalance still exists.At the level of the two regions in the South and North,the level of human development continues to improve.The development level of the southern region evolves from being lower than that of the northern region to surpassing that of the northern region.The balance of human development within the two regions has gradually increased.However,the balance of human development between regions evolves from gradually increasing to gradually decreasing.The People's Livelihood Index and Sustainability Index lag behind the other three sub-indices,which are the shortcomings in human development of each region and the main reason for the unbalanced development of CHDI among regions.(2)The results of LMDI decomposition of CHDI at the national level reveal that the five sub-indices have different trends of changes in their contribution to CHDI changes.The contribution of the longevity index continues to decline,the contribution of the education index and the livelihood index takes the lead in decreasing and then increases,and the contribution of the income index and the sustainability index takes the lead in increasing and then decreasing.During1990-2018,the livelihood index is the most important driving index for CHDI growth in all regions of the country.From the cross-sectional comparison after2010,there is room for the eastern region to improve the contribution of the sustainability index.The central region still has room for improvement in the contribution rate of longevity index.In the western region,there is room for improvement in the contribution rate of income index and education index.There is room for improvement in the contribution rate of income index in the Northeast region.There is room for improvement in the contribution rate of the sustainability index in the southern region.The northern region has room for improvement in the contribution rate of education index and income index.(3)From the spatial correlation test,there is a strong spatial autocorrelation of CHDI in 31 provinces during 1990-2018.There is a significant "high-high" clustering among Beijing,Tianjin,Shanghai,Jiangsu and Zhejiang provinces.There is a significant "low-low" aggregation among Guizhou,Yunnan,Tibet and Qinghai provinces.The "high-high" clustering area tends to expand gradually.The "low-low" agglomeration tends to gradually decrease.From the spatial regression results,the CHDI of the neighboring provinces has a significant positive contribution to the CHDI of this province.For every 1% increase in CHDI of "neighboring" provinces,the CHDI of this province will increase by 0.2030%.GDP per capita,education expenditure per capita,urbanization rate,and health expenditure per capita are also important factors that contribute to the improvement of China's CHDI.The possible innovations of this paper include the following three points.(1)The connotation of human development is expanded and a new human development index indicator system is constructed.Under the perspective of the new development concept,the connotation of human development in China is expanded,and an indicator system and calculation framework suitable for measuring the level of human development in China are constructed.This provides a basis for measuring and analyzing the spatial and temporal evolution of China's human development level and its regional development differences.(2)The subjective weighting problem of the HDI sub-indices is improved.Based on the dynamic factor analysis(DFA)model,this paper reconstructs the weight setting model of the China Human Development Index(CHDI)sub-indices.The model has good robustness.It avoids the subjectivity of weight setting and the disadvantages of objective assignment methods based on principal component analysis and data envelopment analysis.The model is a better weight setting method.(3)The influencing factors of CHDI in China are discussed from two perspectives: LMDI decomposition technique and spatial modeling regression.First,this paper derives the LMDI decomposition formula of CHDI based on the LMDI decomposition technique,according to which the degree of influence of CHDI sub-indices on CHDI growth in each region of China is analyzed.Then,the mechanism of the effect of China's human development index(CHDI)is analyzed from a spatial modeling regression perspective.It remedies the shortcomings of previous literature in which the spatial correlation was not considered in the empirical analysis of the influencing factors of China's human development index.In the context of implementing the new development concept and building a new development pattern of international and domestic dual cycle,this paper combines the connotation of human development and the new development concept to expand the connotation of human development in China.Based on the HDI index system,a human development index(CHDI)index system and calculation method are constructed in line with China's national conditions.Based on the CHDI indicator system,the human development levels of various places in China are measured,then the evolution characteristics of China's human development levels are analyzed,and finally the influencing factors of China's Human Development Index(CHDI)are empirically analyzed.The research in this paper is an improvement and refinement of the HDI,which provides empirical research experience for measuring China's human development level and helps to propose more scientific and effective macro policy recommendations for promoting China's human development level.There are also some shortcomings in this paper that need to be further explored.For example,when constructing the China Human Development Index(CHDI)indicator system,the selection of indicators and the division of indicator levels may not be comprehensive and perfect.The analysis of the causes arising from regional development imbalance is not deep enough.When modeling regressions to analyze the influencing factors of CHDI,they are only discussed for the national level,lacking regional perspectives.These shortcomings can be used as directions for further research in the future.