Empirical Analysis On Standardization And Economic Growth

With the rapid development of science and technology, the economic function of standards and the standardization get more and more attention. In general, standardization is contributed to the achievement of economies of scale, the reduction of transaction costs, the correction of adverse selection, the strengthening of the external network and the increase of system products. On the other side, standardization could also result in a monopoly, market concentration, and other adverse consequences. In addition, the standards are of public goods characteristics. Therefore, it is necessary for the government to participate in the development of standards.Technological progress is the engine of economic growth standardization can promote technological progress and indirectly promote the economic growth. Technological progress includes technological innovation and the spread of technological innovation. For technological innovation, standardization bound the diversity of innovation, specify the direction of innovation and reduce the risk of innovation, make the innovation more efficient. At the same time, standardization can provide technical innovation for the state of information; For the spread of technological innovation, standardization make information technology innovation legal and open, which has increased the proliferation of channels of information; and improved the spread of innovation in the process of Market failure, and reduced the uncertainty of using technology; helped to strengthen the network effect. These can accelerate the speed of technological innovationFrom the point of view that the standardization is conducive to the technological progress, this article takes the stock of China's standardization in 1981-2004 as the independent variables, and introduces the macro Cobb - Douglas production function to make the empirical analysis. The regression analysis proves that the standardization contribute to China's economic growth in the long term. From the contribution rates of all the elements to the economic growth, we can see that the contribution rate of the standards to the economic growth is slightly lower than the contribution rate of R & D to the economic growth in the same period. This further illustrate that innovation can be translated into better productivity through standardization. At the same time, we also found that as time goes by the contribution rate of standards to the economic growth declined in recent years, reflecting China's scientific and technological innovation is not synchronized with the standardization, and the standardization work is behind the innovation.According to the empirical analysis, this paper thinks that China's standardization work is out of touch with scientific research, production and practice, and there are obstacles in the process of technological achievements conversing into the technical standards. This is mainly because China is still use the standardization model of the planned economy era, and the government is the main body in standardization, so that the involvement of the corporate is not strong. In order to change this situation, the existing system must be reformed. Finally, the article suggests policy recommendations to promote the development of China's standardization.