Household Saving in China: The Keynesian Hypothesis,Life‐Cycle Hypothesis,and Precautionary Saving Theory

We test the explanatory powers of Keynesian theory, the life‐cycle hypothesis, and the precautionary saving theory on household saving in China, based on data from 1990 to 2009 from 31 provinces and autonomous regions. The results show that the precautionary saving motivation explains household saving better than Keynesian theory. The study results also highlight the impact of life expectancy on China's household saving.     

Fertility and old-age labor supply in aging China

This paper studies the fertility and old-age labor supply decisions of Chinese households along with the relaxation of fertility control and a rise in life expectancy. We first build an overlapping-generations model, where agents make endogenous fertility and old-age labor supply decisions in the presence of fertility constraint. In our model, children serve as an alternative saving technology since they provide intra-family transfer for their old-age parents. Our analytical results suggest that the impact of rising life expectancy on fertility depends on whether children are more like consumption goods or saving vehicles. Relaxing fertility control would induce more leisure in the old age, while a rise in life expectancy would lead to more old-age labor supply. We then calibrate the model to Chinese economy and find that a rise in life expectancy would discourage fertility as intra-family transfer becomes less important. In addition, the implementation of two-children policy rather than full relaxation of fertility control, a rise in child-rearing cost, and an expansion of social security would also reduce fertility, partly offsetting the effects of relaxing one-child policy.     

A mixed blessing of lifespan heterogeneity

Human mortality data reveal that life expectancy in industrialized countries has been converging to a common value. Yet, significant variations in the distributions of adult life-table ages at death among some developed countries have also been observed. This paper, largely motivated by Japan’s mortality data, presents a general equilibrium, overlapping-generations model that assesses the welfare effects of the mean-preserving declines in the variance of the distribution of adult ages at death. Our quantitative exercise reveals that for a given value of the economy-wide life expectancy, the individual welfare effects due to switching from high to low-variance steady states are length of life-dependent, quite sensitive to the average economy-wide retirement age, and strongly influenced by associated changes in the labor supply, factor prices, and lifetime earnings.     

Demographic Effects on Personal Saving in the Future

After briefly examining the various proposed causes for the decline in the U.S. personal saving rate in the past decade, this essay then argues that a shift in the demographic composition of the population will be a much more important cause for a decline in personal saving in the future. A change in the balance between those in the labor force who are saving and retirees who are dissaving will result in a considerable fall in the aggregate saving rate under most assumptions. The simulation model used to examine this phenomenon takes into account the interest rate, the growth rate of the economy, the retirement age. the growth of population, and the life expectancy. Attention is also given to certain consequences of the fall in the saving rate, such as changes in the interest rate, changes in asset prices, and a decline in the GDP growth rate.     

An introduction to the history of infectious diseases,epidemics and the early phases of the long-run decline in mortality†

This article, written during the COVID-19 epidemic, provides a general introduction to the long-term history of infectious diseases, epidemics and the early phases of the spectacular long-term improvements in life expectancy since 1750, primarily with reference to English history. The story is a fundamentally optimistic one. In 2019 global life expectancy was approaching 73 years. In 1800 it was probably about 30. To understand the origins of this transition, we have to look at the historical sequence by which so many causes of premature death have been vanquished over time. In England that story begins much earlier than often supposed, in the years around 1600. The first two ‘victories’ were over famine and plague. However, economic changes with negative influences on mortality meant that, despite this, life expectancies were either falling or stable between the late sixteenth and mid eighteenth centuries. The late eighteenth and early nineteenth century saw major declines in deaths from smallpox, malaria and typhus and the beginnings of the long-run increases in life expectancy. The period also saw urban areas become capable of demographic growth without a constant stream of migrants from the countryside: a necessary precondition for the global urbanization of the last two centuries and for modern economic growth. Since 1840 the highest national life expectancy globally has increased by three years in every decade.     

Socioeconomic equity and fertility in developing countries: A block-recursive model

Summary This paper explores the interrelationships among fertility and three measurable aspects of socioeconomic equity: life expectancy, schooling, and income distribution. A block-recursive model of interaction among these variables is tested on cross-sectional data for developing countries. The structural results validate the initial hypotheses, with an important exception: income distribution does not act directly on fertility. Taking indirect effects into account, by deriving the reduced form of the system, shows life expectancy and schooling as major determinants of fertility, and income distribution as a lesser influence. The feedback from fertility to income equity considerably exceeds the net effect in the other direction.This paper was completed while the author was a visiting scholar at The Carolina Population Center and Department of Economics, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Richard Bilsborrow, Boone Turchi, and 7. Richard Udry provided helpful comments on an earlier version. Sang E. Lee and V. Panoutsopoulos kindly made available unpublished data from World Bank files.     

东中西部地区差距的人类发展指数估计

文章在收集整理反映我国东中西部收入、教育和出生时预期寿命差别数据的基础上,利用UNDP的人类发展指数法计算了按东中西部划分的收入指数、教育指数和预期寿命指数,并进一步得出按东中西部划分的人类发展指数。通过对各项指数的分析,得出的主要结论是:自20世纪90年代以来,东     

Longevity,Fertility, and the Real Exchange Rate

We build a simple overlapping generation model to investigate the effect of life expectancy on the real exchange rate where fertility is chosen endogenously. The model reveals that, although the overall effect of life expectancy on the real exchange rate is not certain, longer life expectancy tends to cause the real exchange rate to depreciate by reducing fertility. Fertility thus serves as a mediator in the effect of life expectancy on the real exchange rate. Evidence from 148 economies (1980–2018) shows a statistically significant and robust negative relationship between life expectancy and the real exchange rate. It is estimated that a 1 year increase in life expectancy is associated with a 1.5 percent depreciation in the real exchange rate. The evidence also confirms the mediated effect of fertility. The mediated effect that fertility exerts accounts for 30 percent to 50 percent of the total effect, depending on the real exchange rate index used.     

Females,the elderly,and also males: Demographic aging and macroeconomy in Japan

The speed and magnitude of ongoing demographic aging in Japan are unprecedented. A rapid decline in the labor force and a rising fiscal burden to finance social security expenditures could hamper growth over a prolonged period. We build a dynamic general equilibrium model populated by overlapping generations of males and females who differ in participation rate, employment type and labor productivity as well as life expectancy. We study how changes in the labor market over the coming decades will affect the transition path of the economy and fiscal situation of Japan. We find that a rise in the labor supply of females and the elderly of both genders in an extensive margin and in labor productivity can significantly mitigate effects of demographic aging on the macroeconomy and reduce fiscal pressures, despite their negative effects on equilibrium wages during the transition. The study suggests that a combination of policies that remove obstacles hindering labor supply and that enhance a more efficient allocation of male and female workers of all age groups will be critical to keeping government deficit under control and raising income across the nation.     

The Determinants of Life Expectancy: An Analysis of the OECD Health Data

This study considers an aggregate life expectancy production function for a sample of developed countries. We find that pharmaceutical consumption has a positive effect on life expectancy at middle and advanced ages but is sensitive to the age distribution of a given country. Thus, ignoring age distribution in a regression of life expectancy on pharmaceutical consumption creates an omitted-variable bias in the pharmaceutical coefficient. We find that doubling annual pharmaceutical expenditures adds about one year of life expectancy for males at age 40 and slightly less than a year of life expectancy for females at age 65. We also present results for lifestyle inputs into the production of life expectancy. For example, decreasing tobacco consumption by about two cigarettes per day or increasing fruit and vegetable consumption by 30% (one-third pound per day) increases life expectancy approximately one year for 40-year-old females.     

Does Life Expectancy Affect Private Educational Investment in China？

In this paper, we emphasize the interactive effect between life expectancy and human capital accumulation, and test the positive feedback of longevity to educational investment in China. This is very important for understanding the pressure from the aging population and the increase in private educational investment in China. We first show in an extended human capital investment model that life expectancy growth acts as a driving force for educational investment. We then build a difference‐in‐difference‐in‐differences empirical framework and use cross‐province data to examine the effect in China. We use the maternal mortality rate (MMR) to identify the difference in life expectancy between genders, and the illiteracy rate or average years of education by gender for educational investment. The empirical results comply with the theory, in that increases in life expectancy significantly lower illiteracy rates and improve the average schooling years in China. This content of the present paper is closely related to crucial issues like population aging, human capital accumulation and gender discrimination. Policy implications are discussed based on the empirical results.     

A closer look at the relationship between life expectancy and economic growth

We first provide a nonparametric inference of the relationship between life expectancy and economic growth using historical data for 18 countries over the period 1820–2005. The obtained shape indicates convexity for low enough values of life expectancy and concavity for large enough values. We then study this relationship using a benchmark model combining "perpetual youth" and learning-by-investing. The generated relationship between life expectancy and economic growth is shown to be strictly increasing and concave. We finally examine two models departing from "perpetual youth" by assuming successively age-dependent earnings and age-dependent survival probabilities. With age-dependent earnings, the obtained relationship is hump-shaped, whereas age-dependent survival laws reproduce the convex–concave shape detected in prior empirical study.     

The standard of living in Latin America during the twentieth century1

New and consistent series for Latin American real incomes, life expectancy and adult literacy over the twentieth century reveal that living standards rose most rapidly between the 1930s and 1970s, a period characterised by increased state intervention and reduced trade openness. Within the region, Brazil and Mexico advanced most over the century as a whole despite the early start made by Argentina and Chile, although convergence between larger countries was accompanied by divergence from smaller ones. There was no sustained narrowing of the income gap with the US at all between 1900 and 2000 but some convergence in living standards due to improved life expectancy. Our new estimates of regional per capita income also permit a clearer comparison with both Europe and Asia. The major advances in living standards achieved in the middle decades of the century were closely related to early industrialization, rapid urbanization, and the extension of primary health and education. Subsequent economic volatility and fiscal fragility limited further increases in living standards, undermining social consensus on development strategy.     

Does inequality in health impede economic growth?

This paper investigates the effects of inequality in health on economic growth in low and middle income countries. The empirical part of the paper uses an original cross-national panel data set covering 62 low and middle income countries over the period 1985 to 2007. I find a substantial and relatively robust negative effect of health inequality on income levels and income growth controlling for life expectancy, country and time fixed-effects and a large number of other effects that have been shown to matter for growth. The effect also holds if health inequality is instrumented to circumvent a potential problem of reverse causality. Hence, reducing inequality in the access to health care and to health-related information can make a substantial contribution to economic growth.     

The late emergence of socioeconomic mortality differentials: A micro-level study of adult mortality in southern Sweden 1815–1968

This paper deals with socioeconomic differences in adult mortality in southern Sweden 1815–1968, a period of transformation from an agricultural to a modern industrial society and increasing life expectancy. We use longitudinal micro-level data with information on demographic events, household structure and socioeconomic status. The main finding is that the socioeconomic gradient is a very recent phenomenon. While mortality fell in all socioeconomic groups it was not until the 1950s that a socioeconomic gradient appeared, and then only among adults in working ages. For the elderly, we find no significant mortality differentials between various social groups at any time. These results are consistent with the divergence hypothesis, although this process started much later than previously thought, and was not an immediate consequence of industrialization.     

预期寿命、生育率变动与基本养老保险统筹账户调整

在构建三期世代交叠模型的基础上,通过选取相关制度指标来模拟分析在未来预期寿命和生育率变动下,基本养老保险统筹账户如何基于参数调整来维持收支平衡。研究结果表明：（1）我国居民预期寿命增长过快,统筹账户收支平衡受预期寿命变化影响较大;（2）在现阶段的预期寿命和生育率条件下,统筹账户能实现自身收支平衡,而且可在短期内通过阶段性降低缴费率来促进制度长远发展;（3）在长期内需通过提高缴费率或降低养老金替代率来保证统筹账户收支平衡,预期寿命为87.828岁且总和生育率为1.79作为参数调整临界点;（4）以现有制度设计为基准,参数调整临界点之前保证35%的基础养老金平均替代率不降,临界点之后保证20%的缴费率不升可以最大程度促进经济和社会发展。     

中国城镇居民储蓄率的影响因素:1997～2008——基于省级动态面板数据的实证研究

本文在生命周期-持久收入模型与预防性储蓄理论的框架内,使用1997～2008年的省级面板数据,通过动态系统广义矩的估计方法对中国城镇居民储蓄率的影响因素进行了实证研究。研究显示:持久收入的增加和储蓄惯性显著提高了城镇居民的储蓄率,并且以上两方面因素可以对1997～2008年间城镇居民储蓄率增幅中的大部分进行解释;但与传统的LC-PIH模型不同,少儿抚养比与中国城镇居民储蓄率之间存在着显著的正相关关系。此外,社会保障事业的发展通过降低不确定性,从而显著降低了城镇居民储蓄率,而就业的市场化程度却产生了与之相反的影响。但公共支出的结构、通货膨胀率以及实际利率没有对城镇居民储蓄率产生显著的影响。     

基于人均寿命提高的养老金个人账户缴费率研究

现行的中国养老保险制度是"统筹账户和个人账户"相结合的部分积累模式。其中,个人账户不具备代际内收入再分配的功能,属于私人商品。个人账户缴费率的高低不仅影响到个人当期的可支配收入,而且间接影响到其退休后生活水平的高低。现行养老保险制度下的个人账户缴费率只能保障退休人员10年的生活,而目前男女退休职工的算术平均余命已接近17年,因此,随着人均寿命提高且不断延长,如果不能及时调整个人账户缴费率,那么退休人口将面临着因长寿带来的生活无保障的情况。本文则通过以现有的理论研究为基础进行合理测算,力求得出基于人均寿命提高调整个人账户缴费率的理论依据和政策依据。     

Mortality, interest rates, investment, and agricultural production in 18th century England

This paper shows that the exogenous decline of adult mortality at the end of the 17th century can be one of the causes driving both the decline of interest rate and the increase in agricultural production per acre in pre-industrial England. Following the intuition of the life-cycle hypothesis, I claim that the increase in adult life expectancy must have implied less farmer impatience and it could have caused more investment in nitrogen stock and land fertility, the increase in agricultural land, and higher production per acre. I analyze this dynamic interaction using an overlapping generations model and show that the evolution of agricultural production and capital rates of return predicted by the model coincide fairly well with their empirical pattern.     

Assessing the Effect of Trade Openness on Health in the MENA Region: a Panel Data Analysis

This study examines the effect of trade openness on the health outcomes of 12 countries in the MENA (Middle East and North Africa) region: Algeria, Bahrain, Egypt, Jordan, Morocco, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Tunisia, Turkey, and the UAE. By using a panel data investigation over 1970–2015, we check whether the trade of these countries with developed economies (using the proxy of G7 countries) and the rest of the world affects life expectancy and the infant mortality rate. We also assess the moderating effect of governmental corruption. Our findings show two interesting results. First, trade openness has a positive effect on health in the MENA region as it reduces the infant mortality rate and boosts life expectancy for both men and women. Second, better control over corruption and more focus on trade with developed countries would lead to more technology and information spillovers, which positively affect the health sector.