The Supply Efficiency Of Medicare And Health In Rural China: Regional Convergence And Threshold Effect

Since the tax reform in 1994, tremendous achievements have been gained in the field of medicare and health in China, especially, with the financial expenditure of the rural medicare and health increasing year by year, the rural medicare and health spending per capita also increases. But at the same time, the effect brought about by the rapid growth of rural medicare and health supply is not obvious. Compared to urban residents, the problem that it is difficult and expensive to see a doctor for rural residents is still serious. Against this background, the study of the supply efficiency of medicare and health in rural China is particularly important.On this basis of literature review, this article found out that the subjects of domestic and foreign research are more about urban medicare and health, using different methods to evaluate their efficiency. However, very little study on the influencing factors and the threshold effect of the supply efficiency of the medicare and health in rural China has been done, which is also the direction and focus of the research in this article.On this basis, the thesis empirically analyzed status quo of the supply efficiency of medicare and health in rural China, that is, used Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) method to measure the total factor productivity (TFP) of medicare and health in rural China with the input-output data in 1994-2007. The results showed that, not only the trend of the supply efficiency of medicare and health in rural China is decreasing, but also the difference between different provinces is becoming narrow, showing a trend of regional convergence.In order to explain why the supply efficiency of medicare and health in rural China is generated, this article analyses its impact factors and the threshold effect from the theoretical angle. It was found that, rural medicare and health inputs, human capital level, economic development level and technical level affect the supply efficiency of medicare and health in rural China. Meanwhile, to each province and city, these factors can promote the supply efficiency of medicare and health in rural China only when each factor reaches the threshold level.On the basis of theoretical analysis, the thesis empirically studied the impact and their threshold effect of the above four factors on the supply efficiency of medicare and health in rural China. It was found that rural medicare and health inputs, human capital level and technical level is very significant to the supply efficiency of medicare and health in rural China, but economic development level is not significant. Meanwhile, rural medicare and health inputs, human capital level and technical level are in the same interval of the threshold to the vast majority of provinces, which means the supply efficiency of medicare and health in rural China bewteen different provinces has a trend of regional convergence.On the above basis, this thesis finally revealed the main conclusions, and put forward some suggestions from three angles of rural medicare and health inputs, human capital level and technical level, in order to promote provinces to step over the related factors threshold and gain positive effect of the supply efficiency of medicare and health in rural China.