A Study On The Relationship Between Technological Progress And Economic Development In Huaiyuan County

Technological progress and economic development, which are highly interrelated and mutually reinforcing, form a driving force to promote the progress of human civilization. Over the past thousands of years, people have not actually realized the importance of technological progress and economic development, which was put in the orthodox economic analysis framework until the middle of the20th century. After World War Ⅱ, with the emergence of the economic growth theory, economists come to see the technology in a new light, of which Solow’ research is the most famous. Solow’s study concluded that the contribution rate of technological progress for United States economic growth is up to87.5%in the period from1909to1949, which turned out that technological progress is a major source of economic growth, but that could not be explained by economic principle. The role of technology was explained fully by the new growth theory which advanced by Romer and Lucas in the1980s, taking education and R&D as a source of technological progress. They also thought the policies which encourage people to make investments in human capital and support for knowledge production which provided by the government can promote the technological progress and steady growth of economy in the long term. Since the1990s, economists probed fully into the technological progress which is represented by product category class increase and product quality improvement.Most of the research on the technological progress and economic development at home and abroad took a country or bigger state as the study object, the research on technological progress and economic development of county was inadequate. This paper based on the economic growth theory and the synergy theory, learning from research results of domestic scholars, taking Huaiyuan County of Anhui Province as study object, measures the contribution rate of technological progress on economic growth and technology-economy composite system coordination degree by economic mathematical model, then makes the analysis of the technological progress and economic development of Huaiyuan County, sums up the experience which enforces the action of technological progress on economic development. Finally, this paper put forward suggestions about technological progress and economic development.The statistical data in this paper, some was picked up from Anhui Statistical Yearbook, Bengbu Statistical Yearbook and the other was provided by The Statistic Bureau and The Science and Technology Bureau in Huaiyuan County. The study concludes that the contribution rate of technological progress for Huaiyuan County economic growth is up to55%in the period from1998to2010, and the coordination degree of Huaiyuan County technology-economy composite system increased from-0.017in2005to0.370in2010. Research has shown that, since the2003, as expenditures on science and technology increased and the development of science and technology in Huaiyuan County goes faster, the late-development advantage of science and technology results in inputs and outputs of science and technology rise faster than inputs and outputs of capital and labor, which is the major cause of the high contribution rate of technological progress; The coordination degree of Huaiyuan County technology-economy composite system was-0.017, which means the development of composite system was in discordant state, mainly due to the development of technology system badly behind the development of economy system. In the ensuing7years, thanks to the concerted efforts of the whole Huaiyuan County people, the coordination degree of Huaiyuan County technology-economy composite system have been great improved. The coordination degree of Huaiyuan County technology-economy composite system increased rapidly from-0.017in2005to0.370in2010. The disordered development of technology-economy composite system have been changed into ordered, but the coordination degree of Huaiyuan County technology-economy composite system was still relatively low in2010, there’s still plenty of scope for improvement on the coordination of Huaiyuan County technology-economy composite system.In the end, there are three suggestions for stimulating economic development by using technological progress,based on the experience which enforce the action of technological progress on economic development:(1) Developing vigorously the human resources in the rural sides, relying on scientific and technological innovation, developing modern agriculture;(2) increasing expenditures on science and technology, establishing and improving a science and technology service system;(3) establishing and improving social security system, importing operative technology which should match the economic development of Huaiyuan County, stimulating enterprises technological innovation.