INTERNAL LOGIC AND NEW DEVELOPMENT ADVANTAGES OF NEW-QUALITY PRODUCTIVE FORCES FROM THE PERSPECTIVE OF TOTAL FACTOR PRODUCTIVITY

Abstract

As essentially advanced productive forces, new-quality productive forces take substantial improvement of total factor productivity (TFP) as its core symbol, which is an inevitable choice for China’s modernization drive. Against the background of new-growth-driver transformation, this paper interprets the theoretical connotation of TFP, analyzes the internal logic that new-quality productive forces realize growth-driver transformation relying on TFP from the perspective of demographic constraints. The Solow residual method is adopted to measure China’s TFP from 2001 to 2025, followed by international comparison. The results show that China’s TFP presents phased fluctuation: it maintained high growth after China’s accession to WTO, turned stable after the global financial crisis, and suffered short-term shocks during the pandemic. There is still considerable catching-up space for China’s TFP compared with developed economies such as the United States. At present, the marginal benefit of economic growth driven by traditional factors is gradually decreasing, and efficiency improvement has become a key path to break through growth bottlenecks. A unified national market, complete industrial system, real-economy-oriented digital economy and booming green low-carbon economy constitute four major advantages for China to improve TFP and foster new-quality productive forces. It provides practical support for quality-oriented economic growth and theoretical reference for central regions to develop new-quality productive forces according to local conditions.