健康人力资本与中国区域经济增长

Health Human Capital and Provincial Economic Growth in China

在人口老龄化与资源环境约束不断加强的背景下,近年来中国经济增速连续多年低于8%,要素驱动型增长模式亟待转型。健康人力资本的提升,不仅能够缓解要素资源绝对数量下降带来的负面影响,而且可以促进中国区域经济增长。对以孕产妇死亡率、围产儿死亡率和伤残调整期望寿命为指标的健康人力资本进行研究后发现,健康人力资本对中国区域经济增长产生了显著的积极影响:若每千人孕产妇死亡数下降0.7个百分点,经济增速会提高1个百分点;若每千名围产儿死亡数下降0.2个百分点,经济增速会提高1个百分点;若伤残调整期望寿命增加10年,经济增速会提高1个百分点。因此,中国应进一步加大公共卫生投入,通过提高健康人力资本来缓解要素禀赋和资源环境的约束,促进经济高质量发展。

In the background of population aging and increasing resources restriction,the growth rate of Chinese economy has already fallen below 8% for several years and the potential economic growth rate is also experiencing a decline trend.Resource-driven economic growth model needs to transform.As the accumulation of human capital will offset the downward trend of economic growth and facilitate high quality growth of economy,this paper attempts to study the influence of health human capital on provincial economic growth in China through the instrument variable method and dynamic panel GMM by using provincial disability adjusted life expectancy data in China as well as the maternal mortality rate and the perinatal mortality rate provided by National Health and Family Planning Commission.The results reveal that health human capital plays an important role in driving Chinese economy.Specifically,the economic growth rate will be enhanced by 1 percentage if maternal mortality rate decreases by 0.7 or perinatal mortality rate decreases by 0.2.Moreover,the 10 year increase in disability adjusted life expectancy will raise economic growth by 1 percent.This result suggests that China at present should fortify the input of the health human capital,such as total health expenditure,in order to increase the health human capital as a cushion to increasing resources restriction.