教育回报率与人力资本投资：基于中国台湾数据的实证研究

从微观层面厘清人力资本投资的决定因素对于促进人力资本积累、实现教育和人才强国的战略目标具有重要的现实意义。本研究关注教育回报率对于人力资本投资的因果效应。由于数据和方法的限制，已有研究通常面临遗漏变量所导致的内生性难题。为克服二者间的内生性，我们聚焦于中国台湾的历史情境，利用一项独特的政策改革作为自然实验，并通过微观个体大数据的使用，试图为上述问题提供严谨的经济学证据。在本研究的情境下，由于特殊的历史和政治原因，来自特定省份的大陆移民在中国台湾的官员选拔考试中享有更高的人均录取配额，因此通过教育获得考试成功的概率更大、面临的教育回报率相对更高。此后的一项考试法改革废除了基于配额的录取制度，消除了不同省籍个体间教育回报率的差异。本研究利用这一改革带来的外生冲击，使用双重差分的实证策略来评估教育回报率的变化对人力资本积累造成的影响。本研究的结果将为最优人力资本投资理论提供重要的依据。

What are the key determinants of human capital investment? The answers to this question have important implications for education and development policies aiming at stimulating human capital accumulation. This study focuses on the causal role of returns to education in shaping individuals’ incentive for human capital investment, which has been understudied in the literature due to data and methodology limitations. In order to address the endogeneity problem, we focus on a unique historical episode in Taiwan, China, where elite government bureaucrats were recruited through a merit-based civil service examination. Historically, the number of successful exam candidates was governed by a quota system based on the populations of individuals’ native Chinese provinces. Since the populations of mainland provinces were not proportionally represented in Taiwan, this system generated substantial variation in per capita quota size and rate of return to education among Taiwanese residents. The system was subsequently abruptly replaced by a uniform admissions policy, which treated all applicants equally regardless of provenance. This study leverages the quota-induced variation and the subsequent policy reform to estimate the causal effect of returns to education on individuals’ human capital accumulation and economic outcomes. It can provide important quasi-experimental evidence for the theory of human capital investment.