The Influence Of The Agglomeration Effect On Human Capital Flow In China

There were dramatic disparities among the economic development in different regions of China since the economic reforms. Human capital, which is considered as an important driver of economic growth, has agglomerated in eastern China where human capital stock is at higher level than other regions in China. This phenomenon has aggravated the imbalance among the regional economic development. Based on the former research about the factors those influence the flow of labor, different income is one of the most important factor that leads to the flow of human capital. Is different income also a rational explanation for the flow of high-level human capital? Firstly, this article has systematically summarised how human capital converges. There are two main approaches to attract human capital: agglomerating human capital–knowledge spillover and technology– attracting human capital and agglomerating human capital– non-knowledge and non-technology factors– attracting human capital.Secondly, the article has compared the human capital agglomeration effect and the extent that traditional factors, such as income, influence the flow of high-level human capital from empirical approach. Furthermore, the article illustrates two main approaches that the agglomeration of human capital affects the flow of high-level human capital. The three important points in this part are:(1) From the perspective of the static distribution of human capital, there are huge disparities of the quality and quantity of professionals among different regions in China. For instance, the stock of human capital in western China and central China is much less than the stock in eastern China. From the perspective of the flow of human capital, human capital is mostly moving to inshore district and eastern part of China, and normally the level of the human capital that has entered one city is higher than the level of the local human capital. Therefore, it is clear that the distributions of human capital among different regions of China are imbalanced and are not going to constringency.(2) Those factors in traditional theories, which explain how human resources flowing, such as the appeal from high-level income, cannot fully explain the phenomenon of the agglomeration of human capital. It can be claimed that the target regions of high-level human capital and the regions that have high-level income are not completely the same, through comparing two kinds of regions in China. Moreover, the empirical approach indicates that the level of pure income does not have dramatic effect on the flow of human capital.(3) The stock of existent human capital has great influence on the present flow of human capital by attracting more human capital into the region, through considering the past stock of human capital as a factor which has affected the flow of well-skilled workforce. There are two factors that lead to the trend of the existent human capital attracting external human capital. The first factor is the spillover effect of knowledge and technologies. That is because the more human resources a place has, the more and easier study and communication can be obtained, which can attract the entering of human capital directly. The second factor, which has been reinforced by the leverage of infrastructures, is that the plentiful human resources may attract external human resources indirectly by boosting the improvement of local fundamental facilities and constructions.Finally, there are several recommendations that have been provided, based on the above analysis in the article. To summarise, the recommendations include reinforcing the political leading by building the essential advantage of centrality, optimising the structure of investment and improving the condition of the infrastructures in western China. These suggestions would narrow the disparities of stocks of human capital among different regions in China, by attracting well-skilled workforce to western China where the stock of human capital is low, and finally achieving the goal that narrowing the disparities among the economic development in different regions of China.