社会福利支出、人力资本与中国经济增长——基于省级面板数据的研究

Social Welfare Expenditure,Human Capital,and China's Economic Growth: A Study Based on Panel Data

促进社会公平的社会福利开支增长是否可以同时促进经济增长,已有文献提出正、反两方面不同的看法。文章利用我国1996年～2009年31个省(市、自治区)的面板数据,以政府社会福利支出占GDP之比为解释变量,以人力资本和经济增长为被解释变量,构建联立方程组模型进行研究。发现人力资本是社会福利支出影响经济增长的重要中介变量。社会福利支出通过增加人力资本积累促进经济增长的"间接效应",大大高于社会福利支出直接促进经济增长的"直接效应"。因此,在财政资源有限的情况下,我国政府在增加社会福利支出时,应重点投向提高国民教育程度、改善生产效率和增进国民健康等有助于经济增长的方向,这将可以实现同时兼顾效率和公平的"双赢"结果。

The issue on whether extending social welfare expenditures promote economic growth has been discussed extensively with contradictory conclusions. This paper adopts simultaneous equations to investigate the relationships among social welfare, human capital and economic growth by using panel data on China＇s 31 provinces between 1996 and 2009. We find that accumulated human capital is a critical channel linking social welfare expenditures to economic growth. The indirect positive effect between social welfare expenditures and economic growth is much higher than the direct positive between them. That is, under the limited government resources, social welfare expenditures should be used to improve education, production efficiency and people healthy, which would both improve efficiency and justice.