Research And Empirical Analysis On Several Issues Of The Theory Of Economic Growth

This thesis demonstrates several issues of the theory of economic growth, and performs empirical analyses on China and its provinces (regions, cities). The first part introduces the concept of economic growth and reviews the production functions built during its theoretical developments. A new production function called dynamic production function is built based on the limitation of traditional production function, which includes not onlly inputs of capital and labor, but also the foundations of past productions. Empirical analyses are done on this new function. The second part disintegrates the Solow residual. From the basic concept of production function and total factor productivity, and considering the chat~ges of economic scale, the So low residual is disintegrated by mathematical methods to further explain and solve the uncertainties of its meaning in economics. Meanwhile, the total factor productiviiy rate is also disintegrated to get an output growth function in order to obtain its new economiic connotation, which differs from the one under the condition of fixed economic scale. ]3esides, from the meaning of the economic growth pattern and total factor productivity rate ccnclucles that it is more rational to use the latter than Solow residual in evaluating the changes of economic growth pattern. This conclusion produces the theoretical foundation for evaluating the quality of economic growth, which is an important guidance in making economic policies. In the third part, empirical analyses are done based on the above theories and the historical statistics of China and its districts. By comparing the results cf the dynamic production function and the C-D production function proves that the dynamic production function is more suitable in analyzing the economic developments of China. Moreover, the results also strongly prove the importance of past production on current production. Together with the results of total factor productivity rate and the economic growth pattern shows that the policies of western wide development by the Chinese central government is a cotrect move. In analyzing the economic growth of southeastern part of ]Fujian province shows that the economic growth of this region is changing from extensive growth to intensive growth, but from an overall view, its economic growth is still extensive and has a severe problem of wasting resources. Finally, based on the results of these analyses, the author suggests that to make its economic development sustainable, fast and healthy, China should strengthen capital formation and pay much attention to the efficiency of utilizing capital and resources.