Econ Papers Daily / 期刊论文
公共医疗与基础研究的提供：对经济增长和福利的联合效应是什么？
Public provision of healthcare and basic research: What are the joint effects on economic growth and welfare?
摘要
We propose a generalized R&D-based economic growth model that incorporates endogenous human capital accumulation in terms of education and health and the public provision of healthcare and basic science. The government taxes households to pay for healthcare personnel and basic researchers. These employees are not anymore available for applied research and for final goods production. Thus, important tradeoffs emerge for economic growth and welfare with respect to government spending policies. While increasing public spending on health and basic research may decrease economic growth and welfare in the short run, we show that they foster economic growth in the medium run and tend to raise long-run welfare when compared to actual levels of spending in Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries. In addition, since public funding for healthcare tends to be rather high in most rich countries, the overall public spending shortfall is lower than previous research has shown. Our results highlight the importance of understanding the tradeoffs involved when deciding adequate public funding for healthcare and basic research.
中文摘要
我们提出一个基于研发的广义经济增长模型，该模型将教育与健康方面的人力资本内生积累，以及医疗保健和基础科学的公共供给纳入考量。政府向家庭征税以支付医疗保健人员和基础研究人员的费用。这些员工不再能从事应用研究和最终商品生产。因此，政府支出政策对经济增长和福利产生了重要的权衡。虽然增加公共支出于健康和基础研究可能在短期内降低经济增长和福利，但我们表明，在中期内它们能促进经济增长，并且与经合组织（OECD）国家实际支出水平相比，倾向于提高长期福利。此外，由于大多数富裕国家在医疗保健上的公共资金往往较高，总体公共支出缺口低于先前研究所显示的水平。我们的结果强调了在决定医疗保健和基础研究适当公共资金时理解所涉及权衡的重要性。