技术进步偏向的生态效应研究

本文将CES生产函数中的要素分为生态和劳资两大类，测量1995-2013年要素替代弹性、效率水平、技术进步偏向度。并从资源适配性的角度，依据要素相对份额的变化，判断我国经济发展过程中更多利用生态还是劳资要素进行价值创造。结果显示1995-2002年间存在技术进步生态偏向的趋势，且在重工业和基础设施增长过快的年份技术生态偏向性尤为显著。2003-2013年出现连续的技术进步劳资偏向，但是需要注意由资本效率降低引起的相对偏向。为促进生态要素效率进一步提高、加强生态文明建设，应当从推进生态技术产生和应用、强化环境管理，提高资本效率等方面入手制定并推行相关政策。

A research on the ecological effect of technological progress direction

Previous technological progress was mainly used to study the elements of labor and capital, high-skill and low-skill labors, energy and capital. In the context featured by increasingly scarce ecological resources, it is necessary to treat them as high-cost production elements, rather than public goods which can be used indefinitely. Therefore, the elements involved in CES production function are classified into two categories in this paper: ecology element and labor-capital element. The former includes water, land, energy, environmental pollution cost, and the latter includes labor and capital. The mainly objective of this paper is to study the technical direction between above two kinds of elements. To begin with, the direction of technological progress is defined as the change of marginal output ratio of factors. Then, the direction of technological progress is obtained through substituting formal estimation element proposed in Taylor′s second-order for elasticity and element share. The innovation of the theoretical model in this paper is as follows. Firstly, the paper further explains the conditions under which price effect and scale effect play their roles. In order to effectively utilize abundant resources or use scarce resources economically, more priority would be given to the price effect when various elements are complementarily related; When there is substitution relationship between elements, scale effect would be prevailed, and in terms of the result of technologydirection, more rich elements rather than scarce elements should be used for production. Secondly, the paper makes a summary of the relationship between technological progress and element return or value share, finding that there is a complementary relationship between the elements. To be more specific, the improvement of relative efficiency of the elements will reduce the intensity of the input of the elements; On the contrary, if there is a substitution relationship between elements, the improvement of relative efficiency of elements will increase the input intensity of the elements. Third, the paper further makes a classification of technical direction. On the premise of the complementary relationship between ecology elements and labor-capital elements, the labor-capital direction of technological progress is divided into two kinds, namely, absolute direction and relative direction. To be more specific, it will be regarded as absolute direction if the efficiency of ecological elements and labor-capital elements improves synchronously and the improvement speed of ecological elements is faster than that of labor-capital elements; on the contrary, it will be regarded as relative direction if the efficiency of ecological elements improves, but the efficiency of labor-capital factor decreases. Hence, according to the characteristics of the ecological elements scarcity in our country, from the point of view of optimal utilization of resources, more efforts should be made to contribute to the occurrence of absolute labor-capital direction results by promoting technological progress. In the empirical part, this paper adopts the form of equivalent, designating energy and labor prices with relatively high marketization among the two categories of elements as representatives prices, and measures element substitution elasticity, efficiency level and technological progressdirection from 1995 to 2013. From the perspective of resource appropriateness, whether more ecological or labor-capital factors are used to create value is judged during China′s economic development according to elements′ relative share change. The results show that the elasticity of substitution of labor-capital and ecological factors is 0.71, indicating that there is a complementary rather than substitution relationship between them, with the average estimation of the two elements′ share as 0.73:0.27. Overall, the efficiency of ecological elements increases faster. From 1995 to 2002, due to the limitation of technology and management level, there was a tendency of ecological direction of technology progress which was especially obvious in the years when the heavy industry and infrastructure grew fast. Additionally, a continuous labor-capital direction of technological progress occurred from 2003 to 2013. To be more specific, it showed that more value was created by using labor-capital elements, instead of ecological elements, which can be attributed to the extensive application of ecological technologies and stricter environmental protection policies. However, we should pay attention to the relative labor-capital direction caused by the decrease of capital efficiency during this period. Therefore, while continuing to improve the efficiency of ecological elements, it is also necessary to prevent the unreasonable allocation of capital elements in the real and virtual economy, as well as the excess capacity and idle capital caused by industrial restructuring. Overall, the value share of observation elements and labor-capital elements shows a trend of continuous rise, increasing from 53% in 1995 to 84% in 2013. On the contrary, the relative value share of ecological elements keep declining, which is more prominent in after 2001.This empirical result is consistent with the theoretical analysis. On the premise of the complementary relationship between elements, the value share of elements whose efficiency improves faster will show a decrease trend. The result also proves that stricter resource and environmental governance implemented by China in the beginning of this century is effective. In order to further improve the efficiency of ecological elements and strengthen the construction of ecological civilization, we should achieve the reduction input of ecological elements by promoting the production and application of ecological technology and promoting the optimization and upgrading of industrial structure. Even more, we will strengthen management of resources and the environment, and realize resource consumption reduction and pollutants control through tax reform and emission permit trading, especially, through a more intensive use of energy and land resources. In consideration of the fact that production is a process of circulation and interrelation, the efficiency improvement of ecological elements can not only produce self-saving effect, but also promote the efficiency improvement of labor-capital resources. Thus, we need to pay more attention to cut excess capacity, carry out supply-side reforms, promote effective investment, so as to make more capital flow into the real economy, and prevent the recurrence of negative growth in capital efficiency. On the whole, more efforts should be made to contribute to the formation of the pattern which takes the efficiency of ecological factors as the first priority, and enhances the efficiency of ecological elements and labor-capital elements together.