【主讲】Lei Zhang 副教授 (上海交通大学安泰经济与管理学院)
【主题】Human Capital and Growth of Industries: Evidence from China's Higher Education Expansion in the Late 1990s
【时间】2013年10月30日 (周三) 15：30-17：00
【地点】上海财经大学经济学院楼602室
【语言】英文
【摘要】Human capital plays an important role determining individual earnings, earnings distribution, and productivity and economic growth. Yet, its empirical evaluation is often plague d by the endogeneity of education and reverse causality issues. This paper estimates the medium-term impact of higher edu cation expansion on the growth of manufacturing industries in China, taking advantage of a nationwide natural experiment starting in 1999 that substantially e xpands the college access of high sc hool graduates and generates subsequently a surge of the college - educated l abor force starting in 2002. Taking advantage of the centrally -planned nature of the Chinese higher education system, I exploit the variation in the growth of college graduates across provinces that can be traced back to the college enrolment rate almost half a century ago at the conclusion of a centrally- designed relocation of higher education institutions. I conduct the IV estimation in a difference-in -differences framework and control for industry and province fixed effects. I find that industries that employ more human-capital intensive technologies in provinces with larger increases in college graduates experience significantly faster growth in total value- added, employment , and capital stock; moreover, larger and more established firm also experience faster growth in labor productivity and average labor compensation. The estimates are not driven by stat e-owned enterprises and are robust to the inclusion of an extensive set of control variables.
