内生人口增长与长期经济增长

Endogenous Population and Economic Growth in the Long Run

本文使用一个父母与子女通过利他主义联系的框架来分析家庭的最优生育选择。这一选择与消费、跨代间的财富转移、物质资本和人力资本的积累、社会文化与经济变迁交互作用形成的社会资本积累等息息相关。与 Barro和 Becker(1 988、1 989)的模型不同的是 ,我们把父母对子女的利他主义定义为后代的数量与一个社会的总社会资本存量的函数。我们扩展了最优增长理论的框架 ,允许内生的和最优选择的人口增长和跨代间转移存在 ,建立了一个内生化的、动态的长期经济增长模式。在这一模式中 ,人口不再是一个外生给定的因素 ,它是经济增长的内生变量 ,它的变化会影响一国的经济增长率大小。在这一模型的基础上 ,本文对中国 2 0世纪 5 0 - 70年代的人口高速增长 ,以及计划生育政策实施后的人口变化提供了合理的解释。

What is the relation between population and economic growth? We find that the optimal choice of fertility is joint with decisions about consumption, intergenerational transfers, and the accumulation of physical capital, human capital and social capital. We extend the Barro-Becker model, by assuming the altruism is the function not only of the numbers of descendant, but also of the stock of social capital. we extend the economic growth framework to allow for endogenous and optimizing choices of population growth and intergenerational transfers. In our model, the rate of population growth is an endogenous variable, and its rate determines the rate of economic growth. Based on this model, we provide an explanation for the high rate of population growth during the 1950-70s in China, and the change of population growth after implementing the policy of birth controll