The effect of human capital expansion on labor cost stickiness: evidence from China’ s higher education expansion—A empirical analysis based on Stata data

Based on the macro context of China's higher education expansion and labor market transformation, this paper explores the impact of human capital expansion on labor cost stickiness using Stata 18.0. Through fixed-effects modeling with ‘reghdfe’ package and automated data processing via Stata macros, this research analyses 2010-2020 firm-level data. The Stata-validated results demonstrate that human capital expansion significantly increases firms' labor cost stickiness, with this relationship remaining robust across alternative model specifications tested through Stata's comparative estimation functions. Mechanism analysis shows that this effect operates mainly through managerial optimistic expectation. Heterogeneity analysis further reveal that this enhancing effect of human capital expansion is particularly significant in the provinces with superior higher education resources (both in quality and quantity), firms with less-educated workforce, and differently intensive enterprises. This research demonstrates Stata's analytical power in human capital research and extends the existing literature by providing micro-level empirical evidence on how human capital expansion impact labor cost stickiness.