储蓄投资行为及外部均衡中的人口结构效应——来自亚洲的经验证据

文章运用动态广义矩估计方法,分析亚洲人口年龄结构对储蓄率、投资率及经常账户的效应。结果发现:(1)人口结构对储蓄的效应存在,老年人口抚养比对储蓄率有显著负向影响,符合生命周期假说;(2)少儿抚养比与储蓄率无显著相关,少儿人口抚养质量与数量间存在替代效应;(3)老年人口抚养比效应对于外部均衡非常显著。老年化经济体对于经常账户逆差存在依赖,经常账户可以视为亚洲人口红利期高储蓄的国际缓存池和中转地。亚洲的经济增长、高储蓄与高顺差呈现梯队性的趋势,且与人口结构的变迁一致。这些发现可以从人口结构角度解释亚洲的高储蓄和高经常账户顺差及国际资本流动。所以,世界经济体应避免同周期的老年化,以保证经济的梯队发展和资源跨代跨国转移;同时,对于减少少儿人口来压缩社会负担的政策效果不能预期过高。

Demographic Effects on Savings,Investments and External Balance:Evidence from Asia

This paper examines the demographic effects on savings,investment and current account balance by using Dynamic GMM Estimation based on a large cross-country time-series data set in Asia.The results of this study show that there exists substantial demographic effect on savings,and that higher elder dependency ratios always associate with lower savings rates and current account balances.However the effect of youth dependency ratios is weaker than that of elder dependency ratios,and there is a substitution effect between child-raising quality and quantity.Also the effect of elder dependency ratio is very significant to the external balance.There is correlation between the economy of an aging entity and current account deficit.Asia’s current accounts with high savings due to demographic bonus can be seen as an international buffering and distributing pool.These findings can be used to explain Asia’s high savings,high current account surplus and international capital flow from the perspective of demographic structure.Given the demographic effects,the world economy should avoid the synchronization of aging cycles to ensure inter-temporal transfer of resources and the global sequential development.Besides,perhaps more tolerances on external imbalance are necessary.