Searching for empirical linkages between demographic structure and economic growth

Demographic structure could affect economic growth through many channels. However, little is known about how demographic structure affects economic growth since no study has examined an extensive collection of channels through which demographic structure could affect economic growth in a single context. This paper overcomes this limitation by examining 45 potential mediating variables between demographic structure and economic growth. A causal search algorithm is used to identify channels through which demographic structure affects economic growth. Our results suggest that demographic structure affects economic growth differently between developed and developing countries. For developed countries, we find that an increase in the share of middle-aged workers has a positive effect on economic growth through institutions, investment and education channels. On the other hand, an increase in the share of the senior population has a negative effect on economic growth through institutions and investment channels. For developing countries, we find (but with weak evidence) that an increase in the share of young workers has a negative effect on economic growth through investment, financial market development and trade channels.     

The sustainability and transition of economic growth in China：from a perspective of factor structure

After more than 20 years＇ high speed growth, the sustainable growth of Chinese economy faces serious limitation of resources and factors now and in the future. In order to maintain the economic growth. China has to trans-form the way of economic growth, Based on the analysis on the related theories of economic growth and the structural transformation in factors of production, this paper proposes that the transformation of the economic growth way has to impel the optimization and the promotion of the utilization structure of factors of production. Finall.v, based on the analysis of the necessity to change the pattern of economic growth, this paper proposes＇ the strategic measures to promote the continuous economic growth and the transformation of patterns of economic growth.     

Demographic structure and growth: The effect of unfunded social security

This paper examines how demographics affect economic growth in an OLG model with unfunded social security. We derive two interesting results. First, the relationship between population growth and per capita output growth is hump shaped. Second, the relationship between life expectancy and per capita output growth is also hump shaped.     

银行业结构与经济增长

With panel data for 28 Chinese provinces (autonomous regions, municipalities) during 1985–2002, this paper assesses the effect of banking structure on economic growth. Banking structure is defined as the relative importance of banks of different size in the banking sector. The market share of small banking institutions is taken as a proxy to measure the banking structure. In dealing with the potential endogeneity problem, this paper constructs an instrumental variable for banking structure with the information on the commercialization reform of state-owned banks initiated in 1994. The estimation results from a two-way fixed-effect model show that increases in the market share of small banking institutions enhance economic growth in contemporary China.     

经济增长与中拉贸易合作

近年来，中国和拉关地区的贸易额迅速增长。本文介绍了中拉贸易现状及贸易基础，重点对经济增长和中拉贸易合作之间的关系进行了分析。     

Historical market genes,marketization and economic growth in China

This paper provides a historical perspective toward understanding the relationship between marketization and economic development in China. The market genetic inheritance hypothesis, which associates the current marketization with cities’ historical market “genes” in China is tested. Empirical results show that historical market genes are important factors for the prediction of the current level of marketization in China. Furthermore, historical market genes serve as valid instruments to test the causality impact of marketization on the urban economic development. Marketization increases by one standard deviation, will increase the GDP per capita by around 0.858–0.960 standard deviations.     

A research on the evolvement of industrial structure and economic growth of He'nan Province, China

This paper,based on the investigation of the statisties in the years of 1980-2005,using Shift-Share Method model,studies systematically the relation between the evolution of industrial structure and regional economic growth in five economic regions in He'nan to offer the foundation of policy for optimizing the industrial structure and promoting regional economic development in phase,and thereby comes to the conclusions:(1) the industrial structure level of He'nan,in comparison with the evolution of the industrial structure across the country,remains low,but yet the evolutional tendency of industrial structure in He'nan complies with the Clark law of the industrial structure evolution,(2)thespatial difference of He'nan industrial structure evolution is comparatively large,(3)the evolution of industrialstructure in He'nan that influences economic growth can be categorized into three types:in eastern and southern regions.the shift-share of the industrial structure is negative,and the shift-share model of competitiveness is negative:in western and central regions,the shift-share of the industrial structure is positive,and the shift-share model of competitiveness is positive;in northern regions,the shift-share of the industrial structure is positive,and the shift-share model of competitiveness is negative;(4) the evolution of industrial structure influences greatly the development of the regional economy of He'nan.As the results of the researches shown,it can claim that the technological innovation of He'nan traditional industry with high-tech,the vast development of the tertiary industry,the expansion of He'nan overall level of industrial structure,the growth of deep-processing manufacturing of agricultural products,and the increase of He'nan agricultural products subsidiary value will be the strategic choices of the rearrangement of He'nan industrial structure.     

Local political chief turnover and economic growth: Evidence from China

It is widely believed that the rotation and promotion system of local political chiefs plays an important role in China's economic miracle. In this paper, however, we focus on the potential cost of the inherent frequent turnover of local chiefs. Based on a new manually collected dataset on prefectural‐level local chiefs between 1983 and 2012, our empirical results suggest that the turnover of the local Chinese Communist Party (CCP) chief would lead to a 0.48 percentage point decrease in the local GDP growth rate in the current year. This effect is especially concentrated on more government‐affected fields, such as domestic investments, consumption and government expenditures. We also provide evidence that organization friction, especially the successor CCP chiefs’ unfamiliarity with the city, his/her new colleagues and/or the working conditions, is one of the major potential reasons for such a negative turnover effect.     

交通基础设施、空间溢出与经济增长:来自中国的实证研究

This paper develops an empirical model to test the spatial spillover effects of transport infrastructure on economic growth. It uses spatial econometric techniques and provincial panel data of China from 1993 to 2004 to analyze the contribution of transport infrastructure to the economic growth of local province and its spatial spillover effects on the economic growth of other provinces. The main findings include: (1) Transport infrastructure and economic growth of China show an evident pattern of spatial clustering. They largely congregate in developed eastern coastal regions, forming a gradient gradually diminishing from east to west. (2) Output elasticity of local transport infrastructure is 0.106, between the values calculated by early researchers with time series data and panel data. (3) Spatial output spillovers from transport infrastructure are largely positive, but evidences of negative spatial spillovers are also found with population density spatial weights matrix model.      

A research on the evolvement of industrial structure and economic growth of He＇nan Province, China

This paper, based on the investigation of the statistics in the years of 1980-2005, using Shift-Share Method model, studies systematically the relation between the evolution of industrial structure and regional economic growth in five economic regions in He＇nan to offer the foundation of policy for optimizing the industrial structure and promoting regional economic development in phase, and thereby comes to the conclusions： （1） the industrial structure level of He＇nan, in comparison with the evolution of the industrial structure across the country, remains low, but yet the evolutional tendency of industrial structure in He＇nan complies with the Clark taw of the industrial structure evolution; （2） the spatial difference of He＇nan industrial structure evolution is comparatively large, （3） the evolution of industrial structure in He nan that influences economic growth can be categorized into three types： in eastern and southern regions, the shift-share of the industrial structure is negative, and the shift-share model of competitiveness is negative, in western and central regions, the shift.share of the industrial structure is positive, and the shift-share model of competitiveness is positive; in northern regions; the shift-share of the industrial structure is positive, and the shift-share model of competitiveness is negative： （4） the evolution of industriai structure influences greatly the development of the regional economy of He nan As the results of the researches shown, it can innovation of He＇nan tra：ditional industry with high-tech the vast development of the tertiary industry, the expansion of He＇nan overall level o industrial structure, the growth of deep-processing manufacturing of agricultural products, and the increase of He＇nan agricultural products subsidiary value Will be the strategic choices of the rearrangement of He＇nan industrial structure.     

Cultural diversity and economic growth: Evidence from the US during the age of mass migration

We exploit the large inflow of immigrants to the US during the 1870–1920 period to examine the effects that within-county changes in the cultural composition of the US population had on output growth. We construct measures of fractionalization and polarization to distinguish between the different effects of cultural diversity. Our main finding is that increases in cultural fractionalization significantly increased output, while increases in cultural polarization significantly decreased output. We address the issue of identifying the causal effects of cultural diversity by using the supply-push component of immigrant inflows as an instrumental variable.     

The effects of local government investment on economic growth and employment: evidence from transitional China

Based on the panel data of 28 provinces in the year of 1987-2001,this paper examines the effects of the local government investment on economic growth and employment.The empirical result shows that the local government investment plays a significant positive role in economic growth and emplovment.However,while the proportion of local government investment to GDP had a remarkable rise after 1998.the elasticity of local government investment on economic growth declined,which shows that there is a hig room for raising the efficiency of local government mvestment.Moreover,the empirical examination shows that although local government investment had positive effect on employment,the elasticity had a decrease after 1994 when the tax-sharing system reform was put into practice.This shows that the positive role of local government investment on emplovment is also limited.This paper argues that the role of local governments as investors must be weakened,and local governments of different levels should lessen direct economic intervention and concentrate on public regulation.     

Tax-spending policies and economic growth: Theoretical predictions and evidence from the OECD

We present an endogenous growth model to study the growth effects of the composition of government expenditure and the associated tax burden. When we use data from a set of 23 OECD countries during 1970–2000, our econometric results support the predictions of the theory. The share of productive government expenditure is associated with higher growth, and this result is more robust when we use effective average tax rates and statutory tax rates as measures of the tax burden. With respect to the tax burden, different tax rates have different growth effects.     

Foreign aid,institutional quality and economic growth: Evidence from the developing world

This paper examines the effect of sectoral foreign aid and institutional quality on the economic growth of 74 developing countries from Africa, Asia and South America, and covers the period 1980–2016. We consider bilateral aid flows into three sectors, namely education, health and agriculture, and find that among the three types of aid, education aid is more effective for aid-receiving countries. The effect is conditional on the current level of institutional quality and varies substantially across regions. While education aid is more effective in South America, health aid is more effective in Asia and agricultural aid is more effective in Africa. As the level of institutional quality improves, the gap between the marginal effect of education, health and agricultural aids widen. Our findings have strong policy implication for donor countries and international aid organisations, which shows that it is more desirable to shift aid flows towards the education sector as the level of institutional quality improves.     

Demographic change and economic growth: Theory and evidence from China

The paper tests the impact of demographic change on China's economic growth by using 1983–2008 provincial panel data. The deducted result of the theoretical model shows that the share of working-age population is positively correlated with economic growth, whereas birth rate has an adverse impact. Empirical results substantiate the finding. Due to the decrease of birth rate and the increase of the share of the working-age population, China's average annual per capita GDP growth rate increased 1.19 and 0.73 percentage points during the sample period. The contribution of these two demographic changes contributed to 19.5% of the economic growth together.     

Ownership, institutions, and capital structure: Evidence from China

We employ a unique data set to explore the role of ownership structure and institutional development in debt financing of non-publicly traded Chinese firms. We show that state ownership is positively associated with leverage and firms’ access to long-term debt, while foreign ownership is negatively associated with all measures of leverage. Surprisingly, firms in better developed regions are associated with reduced access to long-term debt, suggesting the availability of alternative financing channels and the tightening of the lending standards under the on-going banking reform. The combination of ownership structures and institutions explains up to 6% of the total variation in firms’ leverage decisions, while firm characteristics alone explain no more than 8% of the variation. Further, we show that non-state-owned firms tend to have lower total and short-term debt than their state-owned counterparts in less developed regions. Finally, we show that state-owned firms’ easy access to long-term debt is positively associated with long-term investment and negatively associated with firm performance.     

Energy prices, energy conservation, and economic growth: Evidence from the postwar United States

The effects of energy prices and energy conservation on economic growth have been examined empirically for the postwar U.S. economy. A vector autoregressive model includes real GDP, real capital, labor, real energy prices, and the Divisia energy index. A key feature of our finding is that some damaging effects of energy conservation on the macroeconomy are statistically insignificant in the short run, and the insignificant short-run effects are quickly enervated over time. Alternative measures of energy use also suggest that energy conservation has no significant impact on real output growth. The findings are generally consistent with the neoclassical position that real economic growth of the United States is neutral with respect to changes in energy use. One exception is the case that energy prices are omitted from the model.     

Export sophistication and economic growth: Evidence from China

We consider the effect of export sophistication on economic performance by appealing to regional variation within one single country (China) over the 1997-2009 period. We find evidence in support of Hausmann, Hwang and Rodrik (2007), in that regions specializing in more sophisticated goods subsequently grow faster. We find substantial variation in export sophistication at the province and prefecture level, controlling for the level of development, and that this sophistication in turn drives growth. Our results suggest that these gains are limited to the ordinary export activities undertaken by domestic firms: no direct gains result from either processing trade activities or foreign firms, even though these are the main contributors to the global upgrading of China's exports. As such, the extent of assembly trade and foreign entities should be distinguished in order to measure the true movement in a country's technology and the contribution of exports to economic growth.     

Energy efficiency and economic growth of China： 1953-2006

Energy plays an important role in the economic life. With the rapid development of economy, the constraint of energy on the sustainable development of economy is becoming more and more obvious. This paper just Studies the factors influencing energy efficiency of China and the relationship between energy efficiency and China＇s economic： growth. By using time series multivariable linear regression methods with China＇s relevant data from 1953 to 2006, this paper constructs the regression model to analyze the factors that would impact energy, efficiency. After that, a regression model of China＇s real output to capital, labor and energy e lficiency is conducted to estimate the marginal contribution of every factor to the real output to prove the fundamental influence of energy efficiency to the economic growth. In the end, some policies and recommendations are also put forward in order to improve the energy efficiency; of China.