人工智能、老龄化与经济高质量发展

Artificial Intelligence,Population Ageing and High-quality Economic Development

技术进步是中国新时期实现经济高质量发展的动力源泉。在老龄化不断加深的背景下,人工智能技术的发展能否有效应对老龄化带来的不利影响、推动经济高质量发展值得深入探究。从理论上揭示了人工智能、老龄化对经济高质量发展的影响作用和内在机制,并结合中国2007—2018年30个省份的面板数据进行了经验检验。静态与动态模型检验发现,人工智能对经济高质量发展存在非线性影响,能有效缓解老龄化对经济高质量发展的不利影响,且该缓解效应存在区域差异,东部和西部区域显著,中部区域不显著。门限模型检验发现,人工智能、老龄化对经济高质量发展的影响存在门限效应,人工智能发展水平越高,越有助于缓解老龄化对经济高质量发展的不利影响。机制检验发现,人工智能能有效缓解老龄化对劳动力结构、技术创新效率、资本形成率带来的不利影响,实现要素升级以促进经济高质量发展。

Population ageing may lead to a decrease in labor supply and a decline in human capital as well as physical capital,thus hindering socio-technical progress,which is a serious challenge for China to achieve high-quality economic development.Previous studies have mainly focused on the role of artificial intelligence(AI)in alleviating the labor supply shortage triggered by population ageing.However,can AI effectively mitigate the adverse effects of population ageing on high-quality economic development in China?What are the underlying mechanisms?There is still a lack of corresponding empirical evidence.Using provincial panel data for China from 2007-2008,this paper constructs an AI development index and a high-quality economic development index and examines the relationship among AI,population ageing and high-quality economic development with static panel models,dynamic panel models and threshold panel models.The static and dynamic model tests show that there is a nonlinear effect of AI on high-quality economic development,which can effectively mitigate the adverse effect of population ageing on high-quality economic development.Moreover,the effect is significant only in the eastern and western of China,but not in the central region.The threshold model test shows that there is a threshold effect of AI in coping with population aging.The higher the level of AI is,the more it helps to mitigate the negative impact of population ageing on high-quality economic development.We further find that AI can effectively mitigate the adverse effects of population ageing on labor force structure,technological innovation efficiency,and capital formation rate,and help factor upgrading to promote high-quality economic development.Compared with the previous literature,this paper expands on the following two aspects.First,different from previous literature that explores how AI responds to population ageing theoretically,this paper innovatively uses a threshold panel model to empirically test the relationships among AI,population ageing,and high-quality economic development and provides a detailed analysis on the underlying mechanisms.Second,it enriches and expands the literature on high-quality economic development from the perspectives of population ageing and AI,and explores the mechanisms of how AI and population ageing affect high-quality economic development systematically.This paper reveals the relationships among AI,population aging and high-quality economic development,which provides insights for government departments to formulate population policy,industrial policy and education policy.In the future,the Chinese government should attach great importance to AI and other advanced technologies to promote high-quality economic development.