Study Of The Impact Of Health On China's Economic Growth

The economists' discussion of health and economic growth began with the study of human capital.Human capital is the capital that is formed by investment in education,health and immigration.Health is considered to be another important part of human capital besides education.At present,most studies focus on educational human capital,while less attention is paid to the impact of health as an important form of human capital on economic growth.In recent years,people pay more attention to health maintenance while improving their living standard.Scholars have gradually realized that health as a significant human capital plays an important role in promoting economic growth.On the one hand,the value of health is shown in its important intrinsic value,which enables people to give full play of their abilities and acquire knowledge and skills more effectively;on the other hand,the value of health is also reflected in other dimensions of human development,especially on the instrumental value of economic growth.Based on an improved Barro three-sector economic growth model,this paper introduces factors such as health,education,material capital,and government public expenditure,and examines the impact of health on long-term economic growth from the perspective of broader human capital;then using the latest data from 1978 to 2015 in China,the health index system is constructed to calculate the health comprehensive index as the health measurement in the empirical analysis.Fixed-effect models,generalized least squares(GLS),and two-stage least squares(TSLS)measurement methods are applied to quantitative analysis and in-depth discussion on the impact of health on the rapid economic growth of China and the regional growth gaps.It has been found that the improvement of health can promote the sustainable and stable growth of the economy.Health indicators represented by the Health Composite Index have a significant positive effect on economic growth.The contribution of health to economic regional growth is related to the level of regional economic development.The breakthroughs and innovations in this study are mainly reflected in the following aspects: First,a health index system is constructed based on the country's macro perspective.Thirty-six indexes were selected from the three levels of health status,health behavior and environmental factors,and health and medical resources for the purpose of quantitatively evaluating the overall health level,which further enhances the pertinence,applicability and practical guidance of the health index system.Second,the BP neural network model is used in weight calculation of health indicators.Given the cross and mutual influence among the health indicators and the BP neural network model's strengths of super autonomic learning and training,the weight of the network model calculation index is constructed by the dynamic weighting method,which overcomes the disadvantage of the index weight to determine the subjectivity,and enhances the objectivity,scientificity and practicability of the index system.Third,in the empirical analysis,the health comprehensive index is constructed,which increases the dimension of health measurement,making the estimation of the effect of healthy human capital on economic growth more comprehensive.As a macro-indicator to measure the overall level of health,the health index is a comprehensive reflection of the health status of the residents in China under the interaction of multiple factors.The construction of health index at the national and regional level is an innovative attempt in the empirical analysis of health and economic growth in this paper,which makes up,in empirical analysis,for the limitations of applying simply one of the following as the indicator: life expectancy,infant mortality and number of medical personnel.Fourth,the paper not only constructs the theoretical model of the impact of health on economic growth,but also provides a theoretical framework for analysis and discussion of the impact of health on economic growth.It thus obtains the measurement model and furthers the study the empirical analysis from the original vertical national level to the horizontal regional comparison level.