Research On The Contribution Of Technological Progress Bias To China’s Regional Economic Gap

The issue of regional economic gap has always been an eternal topic in academic circles.Regional economic gap mainly refers to the difference of regional economic growth,that is,the inconsistency of economic growth speed and scale among regions.Under the new normal of China’s economy,China’s economic growth mainly depends on the increase of factor input to the improvement of total factor productivity.As an important source of economic growth,TFP is produced by technological progress.In actual production,Solow model,which assumes that technological progress is neutral,is contrary to reality.Technological progress is biased and more in line with the heterogeneity of development in different regions and stages.On the one hand,technological progress bias directly promotes the improvement of total factor productivity to affect the average labor income,thus affecting the regional economic gap;on the other hand,technological progress bias affects the average labor income through the coupling with factor structure,thus indirectly affecting the regional economic gap.Throughout the research of scholars,most scholars focus on the impact of technological progress bias on total factor productivity,and the relationship between total factor productivity and economic growth,regional economic gap,but few directly study the impact of technological progress bias on regional economic gap from the source of regional economic gap.So,what kind of path does technological progress bias affect the formation of regional economic gap,and to what extent it determines the change of regional economic gap,are all issues worthy of our in-depth discussion,which has important practical significance for promoting the balanced development of regional economy in China.Based on the biased perspective of technological progress,this thesis investigates the formation of regional economic gap,and studies it through mathematical decomposition.The main content is divided into three aspects: firstly,this thesis uses the Theil index method to decompose the regional economic gap,measures the change trend of China’s regional economic gap from 1978 to 2017,and further observes the evolution trend of regional and intra regional economic gap.Secondly,the measurement of technological progress bias in China.By constructing an index to measure the bias of technological progress and combining with the three equation supply surface system method,this thesis measures the elasticity of factor substitution and the bias of technological progress in China,four regions and 30 provinces and cities from 1979 to 2017,and analyzes the evolution trend of the bias of regional technological progress in China.Finally,the thesis deduces the expression of the influence of technological progress bias and regional economic gap through mathematical model,and analyzes the path through which technological progress bias affects regional economic gap.This thesis first establishes the relationship between the bias of technological progress and the average output of labor,expands the logarithmic form of average output of labor with Theil index,and obtains the expression of the bias of technological progress and the average output of labor and the regional economic gap,and then analyzes the influence direction and degree of the bias of technological progress on the regional economic gap in each stage and region.The results show that: first,during 1978-2017,the regional economic gap in China shows a trend of narrowing first,then expanding and then narrowing.The intra group gap is the main factor leading to the change of regional economic gap,and the effect intensity decreases year by year.The influence of inter group gap on Regional economic gap shows a slow upward trend,but it is always weaker than the intra group gap.Second,from 1979 to2017,China’s technological progress was biased towards capital as a whole.From the perspective of different regions,except for the East,the other three regions were biased towards capital.Third,the regional economic gap(including inter group gap and intra group gap)is determined by labor participation effect,capital deepening effect,technological progress bias effect and coupling effect of technological progress bias and capital deepening.Technological progress bias has a direct effect on regional economic gap,and technological progress bias affects regional economy through coupling with capital elements.The gap has an indirect effect.Among them,the coupling effect of technological progress bias and capital deepening is the main factor of intra group gap and inter group gap expansion,so it dominates the change of regional economic gap in China;the biased effect of technological progress is the main factor of intra group gap narrowing,and the effect of capital deepening on inter group gap is increasing year by year,which is an important factor of widening inter-group gap.The narrowing of inter-group gap is mainly caused by institutional effect.