IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/taf/rehdxx/v32y2017i1p1-36.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Human Capital in Republican and New China: Regional and Long-Term Trends

Author

Listed:
  • Bas van Leeuwen
  • Jieli van Leeuwen-Li
  • Peter Foldvari

Abstract

In recent decades it has been debated whether China’s growth performance is primarily driven by capital accumulation (more inputs) or rather by an increase in Total Factor Productivity (TFP) growth (better technology and institutions). The answer to this question may offer a glimpse into the future trends of China’s economic growth. If the perspiration factors are dominant, one should expect a slowdown in the growth of the Chinese economy in accordance with the traditional Solow model. If, however, TFP growth drives per capita GDP growth, one can expect a strong convergence of China toward the technological frontier. In this paper we combine historical, long-term analysis with quantitative methods to find out whether the effect of (both human- and physical) capital and TFP on growth changed over the last 90 years. While partly relying on existing data, lack of information required us to estimate a new dataset on human capital for the provinces of China between 1922 and 2010 which allows us to decompose the observed economic growth into accumulation driven and TFP driven parts. We find that general technological development improved steadily over the course of the 1990s and 2000s.

Suggested Citation

  • Bas van Leeuwen & Jieli van Leeuwen-Li & Peter Foldvari, 2017. "Human Capital in Republican and New China: Regional and Long-Term Trends," Economic History of Developing Regions, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 32(1), pages 1-36, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:taf:rehdxx:v:32:y:2017:i:1:p:1-36
    DOI: 10.1080/20780389.2016.1261629
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/20780389.2016.1261629
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1080/20780389.2016.1261629?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Zuliu F. Hu & Mohsin S. Khan, 1997. "Why Is China Growing So Fast?," IMF Staff Papers, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 44(1), pages 103-131, March.
    2. Hossain, Shaikh I., 1997. "Making education in China equitable and efficient," Policy Research Working Paper Series 1814, The World Bank.
    3. International Monetary Fund, 1997. "Why is China Growing So Fast?," IMF Economic Issues 1997/005, International Monetary Fund.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Mitsuhiko Kataoka, 2022. "Perspiration versus inspiration: sources of national and provincial output growth in Indonesia [1990–2015] using province-level non-parametric frontier analysis," Asia-Pacific Journal of Regional Science, Springer, vol. 6(1), pages 113-139, February.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Scott Rozelle & Yiran Xia & Dimitris Friesen & Bronson Vanderjack & Nourya Cohen, 2020. "Moving Beyond Lewis: Employment and Wage Trends in China’s High- and Low-Skilled Industries and the Emergence of an Era of Polarization," Comparative Economic Studies, Palgrave Macmillan;Association for Comparative Economic Studies, vol. 62(4), pages 555-589, December.
    2. Kayode, M.O. & Odusola, Ayodele, 2001. "Economic Development Management in Nigeria: Dynamics, Dialectics and Outcomes," UNDP Africa Economists Working Papers 307338, United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).
    3. Jose Miguel Albala-Bertrand, 2013. "Evolution of Structural Indicators. China and Regions: 1981-2010," Working Papers 701, Queen Mary University of London, School of Economics and Finance.
    4. Dollar, David & Kraay, Aart, 2006. "Neither a borrower nor a lender: Does China's zero net foreign asset position make economic sense?," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 53(5), pages 943-971, July.
    5. Sima Siami-Namini, 2017. "China's Economy and the Global Financial Crisis," International Journal of Economics and Financial Issues, Econjournals, vol. 7(5), pages 259-265.
    6. Kayode, M.O. & Odusola, A.F., 2001. "Economic Development Management in Nigeria: Dynamics, Dialectics and Outcomes," UNDP Africa Research Discussion Papers 267026, United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).
    7. Hung, Shiu-Wan, 2009. "Development and innovation in the IT industries of India and China," Technology in Society, Elsevier, vol. 31(1), pages 29-41.
    8. Gennady Bilych, 2013. "Democratic Changes and Economic Growth," Business and Economic Research, Macrothink Institute, vol. 3(1), pages 461-486, June.
    9. Banerjee, Abhijit & Duflo, Esther & Qian, Nancy, 2020. "On the road: Access to transportation infrastructure and economic growth in China," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 145(C).
    10. James Laurenceson, "undated". "China�s exchange rate policy: the case against abandoning the dollar peg," EAERG Discussion Paper Series 0105, School of Economics, University of Queensland, Australia.
    11. Colombatto Enrico, 2001. "Was Transition about Free-Market Economics?," Journal des Economistes et des Etudes Humaines, De Gruyter, vol. 11(1), pages 1-16, March.
    12. Bernstein, Paul M. & Montgomery, W. David & Tuladhar, Sugandha D., 2006. "Potential for reducing carbon emissions from non-Annex B countries through changes in technology," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 28(5-6), pages 742-762, November.
    13. Scherngell, Thomas & Borowiecki, Martin & Hu, Yuanjia, 2014. "Effects of knowledge capital on total factor productivity in China: A spatial econometric perspective," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 29(C), pages 82-94.
    14. Subal C. Kumbhakar, 2017. "Do urbanization and public expenditure affect productivity growth? The case of Chinese Provinces," Indian Economic Review, Springer, vol. 52(1), pages 127-156, December.
    15. Chong-En Bai & Chang-Tai Hsieh & Yingyi Qian, 2006. "The Return to Capital in China," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 37(2), pages 61-102.
    16. Timothy J. Kehoe & Kim J. Ruhl, 2010. "Why Have Economic Reforms in Mexico Not Generated Growth?," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 48(4), pages 1005-1027, December.
    17. Kashif Munir & Shahzad Arshad, 2018. "Factor accumulation and economic growth in Pakistan: incorporating human capital," International Journal of Social Economics, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 45(3), pages 480-491, March.
    18. Minzhe Du & Bing Wang & Yanrui Wu, 2014. "Sources of China’s Economic Growth: An Empirical Analysis Based on the BML Index with Green Growth Accounting," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 6(9), pages 1-22, September.
    19. Chadwick C. Curtis & Steven Lugauer & Nelson C. Mark, 2015. "Demographic Patterns and Household Saving in China," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 7(2), pages 58-94, April.
    20. Tian, Xu & Yu, Xiaohua, 2012. "The Enigmas of TFP in China: A meta-analysis," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 23(2), pages 396-414.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:taf:rehdxx:v:32:y:2017:i:1:p:1-36. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Chris Longhurst (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.tandfonline.com/rehd20 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.