城镇化、人口年龄结构与居民消费——基于省际动态面板的实证研究

Urbanization,Population Age Composition and Resident Consumption: Empirical Research Based on Provincial Dynamic Panel Data

伴随改革开放30多年来的经济增长,我国的城镇化进程不断加快、人口年龄结构也在悄然发生变化,然居民消费率却不断下降。文章基于中国29个省份1989-2010年的面板数据,对城镇化、人口年龄结构这些人口消费环境或制度变量与居民消费之间的关系进行了实证研究。使用动态面板一步系统GMM估计发现:城镇化水平与我国居民消费率呈正向关系,城镇化水平每提高1%,居民消费率就增加0.04%,城镇化通过提升居民消费能力、改变居民消费习惯和扩展消费领域等途径间接地提高了总体消费水平,预计这一正向作用还会增强;生命周期理论在我国部分成立,少儿抚养比的下降降低了我国居民消费率,人口老龄化的加速也阻碍了我国居民消费率的提升,因而我国人口年龄结构的变迁是居民消费率下降的原因之一;总的来看,样本期城镇化对居民消费率的正向作用被人口年龄结构的负向作用所抵消,加之中国居民存在消费惰性,这些都有助于解释消费率的持续下降。基于此,本文还就如何扩大内需提出了几点建议。

With thirty years＇ economic growth since the reform and opening up,the urbanization process of China is accelerating with population age composition changing.However,China＇s household consumption rate is continuously decreasing.By using the panel data of 29 provinces in 1989-2010,this paper conducts an empirical study on the relationship of such population consumption environment or system variables as urbanization and population age composition with household consumption rate.Based on dynamic panel one-step system GMM estimation,the author finds that：improvements of urbanization contribute to drive the consumption,each 1％ increase in urbanization level will lead to 0.04％ increase in household consumption rate.Urbanization directly increase the overall consumption level through strengthening household consumption ability,changing consumption habits and expanding consumption field and this positive impact is expected to enhance over time; the decrease in children＇s dependency ratio helps to reduce the household consumption rate while the aging of population hinder the rise of household consumption rate,as such,the Life Cycle Hypothesis holds partially for China; changes in population age composition constitute one of the reasons for the decrease in household consumption rate;overall,the positive effect of urbanization on household consumption rate has been offset by the negative effect of the population structure,which,coupled with Chinese thrift consumption habit,may explain the reason for continuous decrease in household consumption rate.Given that,some advices on expanding domestic demand are put forward.