Transition from Demographic Dividend to Reform Dividend:——Simulation of China's Potential Growth Rate

Due to diminishing demographic dividend characterized by a falling workingage population and rising dependency ratio, China’s long-term potential growth rates will keep declining, likely to be a mere 6.6% during the 13 th Five-Year Plan period(2016-2020). China’s economic growth sustainability hinges upon its transition from the previous dependence on demographic dividend to the future reform dividend. In the growth accounting equation, we have simulated various reform initiatives and arrived at the following findings. First, although both the labor participation rate and TFP can increase China’s potential growth rate, the former will only achieve a short-term growth effect, which will diminish in the long run. By contrast, the growth effect of TFP demonstrates the tendency of continuous increase. This further indicates that China’s economic growth will increasingly rely on TFP improvement instead of traditional factor input. Second, different from the diminishing growth effect of enrolment rate, training may play a pivotal role in human capital development to significantly enhance potential growth rates. Third, if all reform initiatives can achieve their expected effects, integrated reform dividends may reach one or two percentage points of China’s potential growth rate.