Social Sciences in China (Chinese Edition)

No. 12, 2023

China’s Dual Structure-Based Growth Accounting—Theoretical and Empirical Analysis of Introducing the Labor Employment Rate

(Abstract)

Zhao Wen

The role of the dual structure in economic growth is often weakened by the use of neoclassical growth models, resulting in the defect of strong theoretical but weak empirical evidence. We take the labor employment rate as an abstract attribute of the dual stage and construct a growth accounting equation that can conduct unified growth accounting between economies at different stages of development and between different stages of development of the same economy. On this basis, we measured the potential contribution to future economic growth of increasing the labor employment rate. The results show that the elimination of the dual structure will continue to be an important source of China’s medium and long term economic growth.