劳动力成本具有二重性,对企业而言是成本,对劳动者而言则是收入;它既是成本支出,又是激励手段。劳动力成本是积极成本,不可与其他物质要素成本等量齐观。当前我国劳动力成本的激励效应显著且存在区间性,劳动力成本对劳动生产率是"激励不足",还是"过度激励",抑或"合理激励",取决于劳动力成本所处的区间。1999—2007年间,我国地区劳动生产率与劳动力成本显著正相关,其激励功能处于加速阶段。现阶段应大力推进收入分配体制改革,提高职工工资水平,以高收入推动生产效率的提升,实现较低的相对劳动成本,在保持劳动成本优势的同时,扭转国民收入分配不断恶化的趋势。
The high rate of wage growth in China has attracted wide attention and caused heated debates in all walks of life. Some scholars think it will deprive China's economy of the low labor cost advantage, while others think it will enhance its competitiveness and sustainable growth in the long run by accelerating economic transformation. The relationship between labor cost and economic competitiveness depends on the impact of labor cost on labor productivity. We present a theoretical framework that suggests the existence of a general nonlinear relationship between labor cost and labor productivity. Within the "reasonable " incentive interval, an increase in wages can have a beneficial effect on productivity growth since it encourages firms to invest in new technologies. The wage increase in the insufficientincentive interval is thought to be a reasonable return to the value of labor and has no incentive function. Wages in the " reasonable " area a incentive have positive effect on productivity growth due to its stimulus for firms to innovate in order to restore profitability.growth rate in the next five to ten years. A limitation of this paper is that our empirical data have failed to cover the latest developments of labor cost and labor productivity.