| Chinese people's life standard has enhanced a lot with the rapid economic growth, meanwhile health has attracted great attention from all circles of the society. Since the reform and opening up, China's economic has boomed, people's life expectancy has also been significantly improved compared to the early years. At the same time, the enhance of people's health has also led to higher level of labor productivity, which contribute a lot to economic growth. What is the relationship between health and economic growth? To explore this problem, this paper uses the simultaneous equations method, considering determinants like economic growth, health, physical capital, human capital, health care price, doctor quantity etc. to analyze the two-way causality between health and economic growth. In this paper, the latest statistical data from 1978 to 2008 is used.The paper has following major findings. First, economic growth has a positive impact on health. Second, both the hospital bed quantity and doctor quantity have positive impact on health, which means increasing health resources will help improve people's health level. Third, physical capital accumulation is one of the factors of economic growth. Forth, compare to education, health has a greater contribution to economic growth for the past 31 years. |
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