Dataset for eastern, central and western China.

The aging population is a common problem faced by most countries in the world. This study uses 18 years (from 2002 to 2019) of panel data from 31 regions in China (excluding Hong Kong, Macao, and Taiwan Province), and establishes a panel threshold regression model to study the non-linear impact of the aging population on economic development. It is different from traditional research in that this paper divides 31 regions in China into three regions: Eastern, Central, and Western according to the classification standard of the National Bureau of Statistics of China and compares the different impacts of the aging population on economic development in the three regions. Although this study finds that the aging population promotes the economy of China’s eastern, central, and western regions, different threshold variables have dramatically different influences. When the sum of export and import is the threshold variable, the impact of the aging population on the eastern and the central region of China is significantly larger than that of the western region of China. However, when the unemployment rate is the threshold variable, the impact of the aging population on the western region of China is dramatically higher than the other regions’ impact. Thus, one of the contributions of this study is that if the local government wants to increase the positive impact of the aging population on the per capita GDP of China, the local governments of different regions should advocate more policies that align with their economic situation rather than always emulating policies from other regions.

人口老龄化是全球多数国家共同面临的普遍性问题。本研究采用2002至2019年共18年的中国31个省区市（不含香港、澳门及台湾地区）面板数据（panel data），构建面板门槛回归模型（panel threshold regression model），探究人口老龄化对经济发展的非线性影响。与传统研究不同的是，本文依据中国国家统计局（National Bureau of Statistics of China）的区域划分标准，将中国31个省区市划分为东部、中部、西部三大区域，对比分析人口老龄化对三大区域经济发展的异质性影响。尽管本研究发现，人口老龄化对中国东、中、西部地区的经济均存在正向促进作用，但不同门槛变量的影响存在显著差异：当以进出口总额作为门槛变量（threshold variable）时，人口老龄化对中国东部和中部地区的经济影响显著大于西部地区；而当以失业率作为门槛变量时，人口老龄化对西部地区的经济影响显著高于其他两大区域。因此，本研究的一项贡献在于：若地方政府希望提升人口老龄化对中国人均GDP的正向拉动作用，各区域地方政府应制定契合本地经济形势的针对性政策，而非一味效仿其他地区的政策。