Empirical Research of Mandarin Popularization Boosting County-level Innovation and Entrepreneurship in Ethnic Minority Regions: Evidences from Eight Counties (Cities) in Guangxi Sino-Vietnam Border

From the perspective of the transaction cost theory, this paper analyzes that the mandarin popularization in ethnic minority regions helps reduce the transaction cost, enhances trust, results in the "innovation and entrepreneurship" effect, and improves the action mechanism of the county-level innovation and entrepreneurship rate. Furthermore, based on the complete sample investigation results of rural residents within 0-3km in eight counties of Sino-Vietnam border, it constructs the quantitative model to conduct the empirical analysis of the significant positive role played by mandarin popularization in the county-level innovation and entrepreneurship in ethnic minority regions, which is that when the mandarin level is changed by 1%, the county-level innovation and entrepreneurship rate is changed by 0.397%.


(I) The transaction cost theory
The transaction cost and the transaction expense have the same meaning in English, so it is not distinguished in theoretical research. Transaction cost is the fundamental concept of the new institutional economics, which provides the brand-new perspective and tool for the analysis of economic theory and the explanation of economic phenomenon. The new institutional economics with the transaction cost theory as the center has become the important branch of modern economics. The ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle was the first one that proposed the concept of "transaction". He divided the modes of becoming rich into the natural mode, the transaction mode and the third mode, such as logging and mining. He also divided the transaction into three types, namely the commercial transaction, the financial transaction (or the monetary transaction) and the labor force transaction (or the employment system). The concept of "transaction" is equal to "exchange", namely the bilateral transfer of article and labor service. It is the institutional economist John R. Commons (1934) that brought transaction into the strict economics category. Based on the "production" concept of economics, he proposed the "transaction" concept in the economics aspect: "production" is the relationship between man and the nature and "transaction" is the relationship among people. ① It is the transfer of ownership. The collection of different concrete transactions is the "operation mechanism" or system. Therefore, in the opinion of Commons, "transaction" is the basic analysis unit of the institutional economics. The non-formal rules like customs, habit and language and formal rules like the constitution may be discussed and analyzed under the concept of "transaction". Meanwhile, Commons divided the transaction activities into three types: bargaining transaction, ① From the perspective of economics, "transaction" is different from "exchange" in classical economics and neoclassical economics. "Exchange" is a process of transferring and receiving objects. It is a balance or stretching relationship of supply and demand of articles. However, "transaction" takes the property right as the object rather than realistic materials. It is the relationship of transferring and receiving the right of natural objects among people, and it legally transfers the legal control. Details: Hu Leming: Evolution of "Transaction" Category --From Commons to Williamson, Journal of Shandong University of Finance and Economics, Issue 1, 2001, p. 16-19. transaction expense, namely the border of the enterprise scale. North (1981) held that labor division and specialization would lead to the diversity of ideology and further increase the transaction cost. ② The relationship of transaction, contract and transaction cost means that all the sections of contract have the transaction cost.
Therefore, almost all the institutional economists have analyzed the transaction cost through the contract process. With the contract process as the main line, Dahlman (1979) divided the transaction cost into three parts: before signing, when signing and after signing. The time and resources used by the transaction parties to know about each other, tell the transaction opportunities to each other and achieve the transaction will are the transaction cost before the contract is signed. The cost paid by both parties to determine the transaction conditions is the transaction cost when it is signed. The cost paid by both parties to execute the contract, control and supervise the other party is the transaction cost after it is signed. ③ Williamson (1985) emphasized the importance of the implicit contract, and divided the transaction cost into two parts: the pre-operational and the post-operational. The pre-operational transaction cost includes the drafting, negotiation and maintenance cost of the cooperative contract and agreement. ④ The post-operational transaction cost includes the maladjustment ① The internal transaction cost of enterprises includes organization costs like the administration cost, the expense of supervising the founders and the cost of transmitting the administrative orders. Details: R.H.Coase. "The nature of the firm", Economica, Vol.4, 1937, p.386-405. ② North held that the diversity of ideology comes from the difference of geographical location and occupational specialization, such as the different customs, traditions and languages formed by geographical differences. And the diversity of ideology requires that more resources should be input to contract description and implementation, thus leading to the increase of transaction costs. Details: Douglass C. North. "Structure and change in Economic History", New York, Vol.10, 1986, p.3108-143. ③ Therefore, according to the opinion of Dahlman, transaction costs include the cost of understanding information, the cost of bargaining and making decisions, and the execution and control cost. Details: Dahlman,C.J. "The problem of externality", Journal of Law and Economics, Vol.22, 1979, p.141-62. ④ Among them, the "maintenance cost" is very complicated and related to the common ownership, credible commitment and honesty, and the legal verdict of contract dispute. In realistic economic life, the common ownership is the premise of transaction. Credible commitment and honesty are very crucial in the "nonstandard" contract, which contradict with the efficiency and "legal centralism" tradition emphasized by economists in the legal verdict of contract dispute. Details: Williamson,O.E."The economic institutions of capitalism". Journal of Economic Issues. Vol.21, 1985, p.528-530. ① On the basis of proposing the contents of the transaction cost, Sheng Hong proposed the concept of the marginal productivity and marginal transaction cost of transaction activities: The marginal productivity of transaction activities is the increment of utility or the saved amount of resources brought by the improved resource allocation efficiency, which is caused by increasing the resource input of one unit to the transaction activity. The reciprocal of the marginal productivity of transaction activities is the marginal transaction cost. Details: Sheng Hong: Market Expansion, Transaction Cost and Production Mode Reform, Management World, Issue 6, 1990, p. 113-125. ② Williamson held that the three basic dimensions are the main dimensions of transaction diversity, among which asset specificity is the most important. Transaction frequency is the times of transaction. Transaction uncertainty includes the uncertainty of happenchance, that of information asymmetry, that of prediction and behavior. However, Williamson emphasized the "uncertainty of behavior", which is the uncertainty caused by strategic concealing, covering or twisting information. Assets specificity means that under the conditions of not sacrificing the production value, assets may be applied to different purposes and used by different people to different degrees.  , 1992, p. 203-256. ④ The market transaction cost mainly includes the information and negotiation cost; The management transaction cost mainly includes the cost of establishing, maintaining or changing an organization design and the cost of organization operation; The political transaction cost refers to the cost provided by collective action for public goods, including establishing, maintaining or changing the political system. Each type of transaction cost among the three types may be divided into "the fixed transaction cost", namely the investment for system establishment, "the changeable transaction cost", namely the cost depending on the transaction amount or size. and property right protection. The transformation behavior involves the development research of natural materials, the shift and displacement, and the service production. The cost and resources related to the transaction behavior and the transformation behavior are the transaction cost and the transformation costs ① .
In terms of the concept and connotation of the transaction cost, domestic and foreign scholars also analyzed the influencing factors of the transaction cost, and the quantitative estimation of the transaction cost. Coase held that the transaction cost was the damage to the system efficiency; to reduce the transaction cost was the standard for system (market or enterprise) selection. Williamson attributed the deciding factors of the transaction cost into three aspects: Bounded rationality, opportunism and assets specificity. The domestic scholar Steven N.S.Cheung expanded the transaction cost into the "system cost" and held that the "multiple qualities" of transaction were the key factor deciding the transaction cost. Wu Shanlin (2002) summarized the realistic source of the transaction cost and held that factors like the difference between knowledge and economy, resource rareness, event probability and uncertainty, space limitation, intelligence and language were tightly related to the transaction cost, independently or together leading to the transaction cost. Although some scholars (HellwigM.,1988;Wang Dingding, 1996;Margaret, 2000) held that it was hard to accurately estimate the transaction cost, the academic world still made much pioneering research. The research includes the measure of the total transaction cost in the macro aspect (North and Wallis, 1986;Dollery and Leong, 1998;Van Dalen and Van Vuuren, 2005;Yang Xiaokai, 1988;Jin Yuguo, Zhang Wei, 2004;Zhao Hongjun, 2006;Lu Xianxiang, Li Xiaoping, 2008); and the measure of the transaction cost in the micro aspect (Hernando de Soto, 1989;Colby, 1990;McCann and Easter, 1998;Djankov, La Porta, Lopez-de-Silanes and Shleifer, 2002;Zhou Yan, Pan Yao, 2015, 2017 Although the concept of the transaction cost is the core and cornerstone of the new institutional economics, there has not been any unified consensus. And there is not any final conclusion of the constitution and measure.
These directly influence the realistic explanatory power of the transaction cost theory. However, the realistic sources like the information incompletion and asymmetry, people's difference of knowledge, experience and preference, the "conflict, dependence and order" in transactions decide the existence of the transaction cost; The three basic dimensions of transaction decide the transaction cost; the transaction cost influences people's selection of institutional structure. That the institutional change helps save the transaction cost is the recognized insight and proposition of the new institutional economics; it is also the logic starting point for the new institutional economics to analyze realistic problems.

(II) The action mechanism of mandarin popularization for the county-level innovation and entrepreneurship
The American linguist William Dwight Whitney (1876) mentioned in the article The Life and Growth of Language: "we regard each language as a system" ③ . nn the basis of internalizing languages properties like sociality, ① North held that both the transformation behavior and the transaction behavior have the "productivity" function; people cannot merely call the transformation cost as the production cost by ignoring the transaction cost. The unrealistic concept that "systems decide on the transaction cost and technology decides on the transformation cost" should be criticized. Both systems and technologies decide on the transaction cost. Details: North, Douglass. C. "Institutions, institutional change, and economic performance". New York: Cambridge University Press.1990a, p.344-405. semioticalness and randomicity proposed by Whitney, the Swiss linguist Ferdinand de Saussure (1907) indicated that "language is a symbol system expressing concepts" and held that "language is a pure social system" ① . nn the basis of Saussure s argument of the difference between langue and parole and the linguistic creativity opinion of the father of structural grammar Chomsky, the famous French philosopher and ideologist Maurice Merleau-Ponty (1973) proposed the "dual" properties of language: nne is the language after the fact, namely the language as the system. The other one is the language creation of speakers in behavior expression. nn the basis of previous studies, the American philosopher J.R.Searle (1979) deeply analyzed the language s institutional property and held that language had the contractual property; individuals couldn t create nor change the language; the language could only exist as the contract that community members jointly adhere to. J.R.Searle further proposed that language was a fundamental social system, for languages not merely described the existing institutional facts; they should also be part of the existing facts. In essence, Searle s opinions are very similar to the conventional language theory ② . Conventional language theorists regard languages as the conventional rule system. The conventions of people participating in language communication are the necessary and sufficient conditions for the success of the language communication activities. All in all, according to the opinions of disciplines like linguist, philosophy and sociology, language is a social contract influencing the word selection of people in the community and is a fundamental social system. Therefore, it is feasible to study the formation and evolution of language, and study the contractual property and economic function of language from the analytical paradigm and method of institutional economics. It will also strengthen the explanatory power and persuasion of related language issues. As is said by Ariel Rubinstein (2004): "The economic theory is people's attempt of explaining the regularity of people's interaction. And the most basic and non-physical regularity in people's interaction is the natural language. The economic theory carefully analyzes the design of the social system; the language is also a communication mechanism in some sense. Economics tries to explain the social system as the regularity derived from the most optimal process of some functions. It may also be applicable to languages" ③ .
The new institutional economics holds that the main power of institution evolution is to reduce the transaction cost. Therefore, the reason why languages may reduce the transaction cost and strengthen trust is that languages are a kind of system and the system among systems, namely a "meta" system. Williamson, the representative figure of the new institutional economics attributes the decisive factors of transaction costs to three aspects: Bounded rationality, opportunism and assets specificity. And he decided the transaction cost into the pre-operational and the post-operational. The pre-operational transaction cost includes the drafting, negotiation and maintenance cost of the cooperative contract and agreement. The post-operational transaction cost includes the maladjustment cost arising after the transaction deviates from the agreement articles, the bargaining cost arising from both parties correcting the post-operational inconsistency, the establishment and the operating cost elated to the regulation structure, and the guarantee cost of realizing the credible commitment. In terms of both the decisive factor and the contents of the transaction cost, language, as a contract and system of communication, plays a direct decisive role in transaction cost. The language is defined ① Saussure held that the reason why languages could be treated as the meta-system or the pure system was that in the language construction process, the connection among sound, thing and concept is arbitrary; however, the expression and inheritance of other social systems depends on certain languages or the restricted selection means. It means that the arbitrary property of languages makes language a meta-system. Details: [Switzerland] Ferdinand de Saussure: Course in General Linguistics, translated by Zhang Shaojie, The Commercial Press, Version 1980, p. 56 -58. ② The research of the American philosopher Lewis D (1983) is representative. He held that some rules can be explained as the stipulations in the groups where they prevail. In languages, a rule can be concretely stipulated as: The stipulation that a possible language L is available to group P is a stipulation of truthfulness and trust in L. Details: Lewis D. "Languages and language". Philosophical Papers, Oxford University Press, 1983.p.24-32. as a contract or agreement because there are corresponding relationships between sound and meaning of language symbols, syntactic structure and sentence in line with syntax, discourse and verbal behavior. In this aspect, the contract or agreement means that people in the community jointly agree with the above-mentioned corresponding relationship and the restraints of language communication that both parties are willing to accept.
It refers to the common rule restricting their verbal behavior when the language users within the community apply the language. Therefore, the conventional language theorists hold that it is the necessary and sufficient condition for the success of language communication to share the same kind of language by the communicators.
In order to fulfill the transaction among transaction subjects, both parties or multiple parties are required to use the common language as the carrier in the transaction process to convey information and reach a consensus.
nr the secondary language rule ① among communicators must be effectively matched. ntherwise, it will lead to misunderstanding in both parties communication, and make the transaction hard to achieve. Therefore, to use the common language or the single language in the transaction process plays a direct decisive role in reducing the information asymmetry in the transaction process, enhancing trust, avoiding the opportunism in the transaction process and breaking through the bounded rationality constraints, and further reducing the trading parties search cost, decreasing the transaction frequency and facilitating the transaction fulfillment, and transaction costs.
The industrial organization theory and development practice fully show that the learning and knowledge communication network formed by the industrial cluster may help strengthen enterprises innovation ability, and promote the generation and development of new enterprises. It is reputed as the hotbed of cultivating enterprises learning and innovation ability. The premise for the industrial clusters to form their innovation advantages is that the frequency exchanges and learning formed based on the close space and the same industrial cultural background and language further promote the rapid communication and diffusion of explicit knowledge and implicit knowledge. Therefore, the popularization of mandarin as the official language may reduce the transaction cost among entrepreneurs, strengthen their trust and promote the communication of knowledge and technologies, which further arouses the innovation and entrepreneurship initiative of countylevel rural migrant workers, improve the success rate of innovation and entrepreneurship, and create the "innovation and entrepreneurship" effect. It keeps in line with the conclusions of empirical researches about the relationship between the dialect distance and technology diffusion. Zhao Zile and Lin Jianhao (2017) took the dialect distance as the measure index of cultural difference. Their research found that dialect distance may hinder technology diffusion by influencing trust and communication, and finally influence the balanced development of regional economy. However, with the expansion of the internal migration scale and the mandarin popularization, the effect is obviously declined.
In essence, besides the "innovation and entrepreneurship" effect, the language s communicative function property, language diversity and transaction interaction decide that language distance is a transaction cost and has an important influence on international transaction. The "international transaction" effect of language has already been proved by domestic and foreign empirical research literature (Hutchinson, 2002;Rose, 2004 trade flow is greater than on the goods trade flow ① . To select the universal language is the effective approach of reducing the transaction cost and promoting transaction.

III. Empirical analysis of mandarin popularization boosting the county-level innovation and entrepreneurship: Evidences from eight countries in Sino-Vietnam border
Innovation and entrepreneurship refers to the entrepreneurship activities on the basis of the innovation of one point or several points, such as technical innovation, product innovation, brand innovation, service innovation, commercial mode innovation, management innovation, organizational innovation, market innovation and   Mian language and Vietnamese. It is also quite common for residents in Jingxi City to apply various languages.
Most residents may speak more than two languages. Jingxi City is a typical gathering place of Zhuang nationality, so the Cuengh language and mandarin are commonly used by bilingual residents. nther bilingual languages include mandarin and Cantonese dialect, mandarin and Hmong language, mandarin and Vietnamese. Jingxi City has eight types of languages, and a complicated language environment. Therefore, some residents may speak three languages, such as "the Cuengh language -mandarin -the Cantonese dialect", "the Cuengh languagemandarin -the Guilin and Liuzhou dialect", "the Cuengh language -mandarin -Vietnamese", "the Cuengh language -the Mian language -mandarin".     If any organization or individual recruits the juveniles above 16 years old but below 18 years old according to related national stipulations, they shall execute related national stipulations in terms of work type, labor time, labor intensity and protection measures, and shall not arrange them to participate in the labor or dangerous operation that may harm the physical and psychological health of juveniles, such as overweight, poisonous and harmful work. Therefore, in view of the illegal recruitment of child labors and the restrictions of work types and labor intensity of juveniles from 16 to 18 years old, this paper sets the age of research objects above 18 years old. Meanwhile, it sets the age of labor force below 65 years old according to the methods of "China Labor-force Dynamic Survey" (CLDS) and the studies of the domestic scholar Chen Yuanyuan (2016) and other scholars.

Model specification
In order to study the influence of mandarin popularization on the county-level innovation and entrepreneurship rate, a model is constructed to conduct empirical analysis: Among them, x represents the county-level innovation and entrepreneurship rate; i represents the county; and t represents time. Σ , ℎ , The mandarin level of the investigated places is shown. nur country hasn t done any index statistics of mandarin, so the empirical process adopts the questionnaire data from eight counties in Guangxi border from 2017 to 2019. The questionnaire divides the mandarin level into four types, namely "knowing nothing, knowing a little, general, proficient", which are shown through data 0-3. This part averages the mandarin level of knowing a little and above, and thus obtains the county-level mandarin level.
, The control variables include the time-delay terms of per capita disposable income of rural residents, industrial structure, growth rate of governmental fiscal expenditure, added value of rural fixed assets, and county-level road mileage. In order to randomize the error terms, (i=1, 2, 3...) are the coefficients to be estimated. , In order to overcome the heteroscedasticity of the model, the logarithmic value is adopted for the variable in the regression analysis process.

Regression result and analysis
Table6 shows the effect of mandarin popularization on the county-level innovation and entrepreneurship. The result indicates that mandarin popularization plays a significant positive role in promoting the county-level innovation and entrepreneurship. It means that when the mandarin level is changed by 1%, the county-level innovation and entrepreneurship rate will change by 0.397% and it is significant at the 1% level. To learn and use mandarin may help reduce the communication cost and frictional cost among laborers, expand the "learning effect" among entrepreneurs, and promote the entrepreneurship activity of workers that go to the town. Notes: *, **, *** show the significance level at 10%, 5% and 1%.

Stability inspection
In order to ensure the stability of the regression result, the robustness test is done by changing the explanatory variable and the regression method. First of all, in view of the time and individual difference, the regression method is changed from fixed effect into random effect to conduct regression analysis. The regression result is shown in Table7. Second, the explanatory variable, namely the measurement index of mandarin level, is changed.
The mandarin level "general, proficient" is averaged as the measurement index of the county-level mandarin level to conduct regression analysis. The result is shown in Table8. The result indicates that to improve the mandarin level plays a significant positive role in improving the county-level innovation and entrepreneurship rate, which is the same with the conclusions obtained in Table6. Notes: *, **, *** show the significance level at 10%, 5% and 1%. Notes: *, **, *** show the significance level at 10%, 5% and 1%.

Conclusion
The regression model is constructed on the basis of the complete sample investigation results of rural residents within 0-3km of eight counties in Sino-Vietnam Border, which shows that the mandarin popularization in ethnic minority regions plays a positive role in boosting the county-level innovation and entrepreneurship activities.
The regression result shows that mandarin popularization plays a significant positive role in improving the county-level innovation and entrepreneurship rate, which means that when the mandarin level is changed by 1%, the county-level innovation and entrepreneurship rate is changed by 0.397%.

IV. Related suggestions
The mandarin popularization in ethnic minority regions plays a significant positive role in boosting the countylevel innovation and entrepreneurship, which helps reduce the transaction cost, enhance trust, create the have been basically eliminated. But according to the field investigation results of some scholars, although the mandarin popularization rate is rapidly improved, the mandarin level and quality remain to be improved. Liu Chuqun (2019)  between "can basically talk with the language but not that proficient" and "proficiently use it but the accent is strong" ③ .
Meanwhile, although the average mandarin popularization rate in our country has been over 80%, the development between the east and the west, the city and the town is uneven. The difference of the mandarin popularization rate between the east and the west is 20%. The popularization rate in big cities has been more than 80%. However, the popularization rate of the rural areas in some ethnic minorities is still around 50%. Some young and middle-aged farmers and herdsmen in some extreme poverty regions even cannot have basic communications with mandarin. It has become the important factor that hinders farmers to get rid of poverty and become better off, restricts our country to comprehensively build a moderately prosperous society in an all-round way, and influences national unity and stability. Zhu Xialin (2019)  The quality of mandarin popularization in our country remains to be improved. And there is the regional, national, urban and rural gap of the popularization rate. Implementation Plan of Overcoming Project of National Common Language Popularization (JYY (2017) No. 2) proposed the key tasks for the east area, the central area and the west area: the east area should mainly improve the level; the central area should mainly reach the standard of popularization; the west area should mainly overcome difficulties of popularization. It also divided the mandarin popularization rate in our country to three levels: counties with the popularization rate of over 70% and above, counties with the popularization rate of over 50% and above, and counties with the popularization rate of below 50%. It also formulated the grade objectives of "concentrated improvement", "popularization difficultyovercoming" and "acceleration of minimum guarantee" ① . City in Guangxi finds that although the proportion of border residents mastering the cross-border languages, namely Gin language or foreign language --Vietnamese, remains low, the income of those engaged in border trade or Vietnam-invested enterprises is higher than those engaged in agriculture and even general migrant workers. It fully shows that the essential conditions for border residents to exert the locational advantages in border areas and participate in border trade include: to proficiently master the cross-border languages or the language skills of neighboring countries, and have multilingual abilities.