The Impact of Aging on Economic Growth Based on Health Investment and Technological Innovation: An Empirical Study from China

Will aging definitely depress economic growth? Based on the panel data of 31 provinces in China from 2007 to 2017, this paper proposes research hypotheses from the perspective of health investment and technology innovation and then conducts an empirical test of fixed effects panel model based on the Cobb-Douglas production function to prove the relationship between aging and economic growth. Consistent with the mainstream literature, this paper finds that aging does have a significant negative impact on economic growth, that is, for every 1% of population aging, economic growth will decrease 0.089%, but the interaction between aging and health investment or aging and technological innovation on economic growth is significantly positive, namely 0.061%, 0.087% respectively. This means that aging can notably promote economic growth through the paths of health investment and technological innovation. Obviously, The final effect of aging on economic growth depends on the combination of negative effect and positive effect. The findings of this research suggest giving full play to the economic effects of health investment and technological innovation, so as to realize the balanced development of healthy aging, innovation leading, and economic growth.