A soft computing method to estimate the effect of production factors on economic growth

This paper utilizes soft computing to estimate the effects of production factors on economic growth. Using GA-ISODATA algorithm to categorize China (which contains 31 regions) according to the level of science and technology (S&T), then sets up the fuzzy mapping relation from production factors (fixed assets, human capital and plowland) to economic output, and the result shows that: during the year 1999 to 2003, the effects of the production factors on economic growth are remarkably different in the regions which have dissimilar levels of S&T, the effects of fixed asset, human capital on economy in developed S&T regions are greater than developing or underdeveloped S&T regions, but the effect of plowland in developed S&T regions is less than developing or underdeveloped S&T regions; the effect of human capital on economic growth is greater than fixed assets for all regions; S&T progress and institutional innovation are playing fundamental roles on economic growth.