Health Investment, Health Capital And Economic Growth

The health, as a kind of human capital, exerts an influence on economy unavoidably through social production activities. Moreover, with progress of social economy, the impact of people's health on social economy will be far-reaching. However, compared to human capital in education research,the health human capital's theory and empirical studies are still far from maturity. I believe that, there are two aspects with regard to health and economic growth have yet to be studied: First, the estimation of investment in health and health capital stock;Second, the health crowding-out effect on physical capital.In the thesis, an endogenous model which involving health accumulation into production function and utility function, has been discussed on the impact of the health on economy;There are two conclusions: First, the existence of multiple equilibrium may lead to crowding-out effects on physical capital by healthy investment; Second, mechanisms of crowding-out effects lie in two aspects: on one hand, health investment promote physical capital accumulation by increasing the marginal productivity; on the other hand, investment in health misuse the material resources which otherwise might be invested into capital accumulation.An empirical analysis has been studied based on 1952-2007 data from USA. Some studies examined the negative effects on physical capital accumulation from health of investment, and the effects on economic growth health from investment (flow), and healthy capital (stock).The empirical analysis has indicated that there is a positive correlation between health increase rate and economic growth rate. Under the situation of ratio of health-material capital being constant, there is positive correlation between investment of health, health capital stock and economic growth rate. However, the ratio of health–material capital keeps negative relation with economic growth rate. So, the effect of health on economic growth depends on the total utilities of the economic growth.Thesis is divided into seven chapters. Chapter I is introduction. ChapterⅡis the date processing of health investment and health stock. Chapter III is about establishment of the basic theoretical model and stability analysis. Chapter IV is about dynamic transition analysis. Chapter V is about numerical simulation on decision-making. An Empirical Analysis has been involved in Chapter VI. Chapter VII shows the main conclusions.