| Abstract: | 經濟發展與所得分配不均皆是總體經濟學範疇中相當受到重視的議題，許多學者提出不同的解釋與討論，因此本篇論文旨在探討三個議題：外人直接投資與所得分配不均度之相互關係、政府規模、治理與經濟發展之相關分析、健康支出對經濟發展之影響。
首先，本文第一章針對經濟發展與所得分配不均之相關議題進行介紹。爾後，第二章探討在不同經濟發展程度之下，外人直接投資對所得分配不均度之影響。利用65個國家自1970年至2005年的橫斷面資料，並且以工具變數門檻迴歸（IV threshold regression）方法進行實證分析。本章的發現如下，外人直接投資對所得分配不均度之貢獻為非對稱的。在所得相對較低的國家中，外人直接投資對所得分配不均度為負向顯著的關係，這說明在所得相對較低的國家，提高一國的外人直接投資所帶來經濟成長之實質效益，分配於貧窮者之比重較高，進而顯著改善所得分配不均程度；然而，在所得相對較高的國家中，外人直接投資對所得分配不均度的效果則是不顯著，這說明提高一國的外人直接投資所能改善其所得分配不均度的能力並不顯著。因此，所得相對較低的國家可透由提高外人直接投資自由度之管道，以縮小國家貧富之間的差距。
推動經濟發展為各國一直以來的重要經濟目標之一，本文第三章延伸新古典生產函數，捕抓政府在經濟發展過程中所扮演的角色，以跨國追縱資料（panel data）包含17個開發中國家與23個已開發國家，樣本期間自1984年至2005年，並考慮到各國之間存在不同的國家特性與內生性等問題，採用Common Correlated Effects (CCE) estimator探究政府規模、政府治理與經濟發展之間的長期關係。本章結果發現，整體而言，良好的政府治理將可激勵國家經濟發展表現；另一方面，若以政府支出作為政府規模之衡量指標，當政府提高支出將有損其經濟發展，然而若以政府稅收作為衡量指標，則增加政府稅收可有利於國家經濟發展。
第四章則關注於健康支出之提高，對於不同所得水準國家長期經濟發展的影響。文中嘗試運用Pedroni (2001) 所提出Fully Modified OLS方法，以1995年至2011年跨國追縱資料重新檢視健康支出與經濟成長之長期共整合關係。主要結果發現，中所得與高所得國家分別提高其整體健康支出，對經濟發展長期皆存有顯著負向之影響；但此效果在低所得國家並不顯著，隱含著透由提高整體健康支出，促進國家長期經濟發展並非良好之政策工具。;This dissertation consists of three independent yet related essays that study the topic of macroeconomics, including income inequality and economic development. The three essays are organized as follows. Chapter 1 of the dissertation introduces the main issues of income inequality and economic development. Chapter 2 discusses foreign direct investment (FDI) and income inequality, Chapter 3 reports on governance, government size, and economic development empirical studies, and Chapter 4 debates the long-run relationship between health care expenditure and economic development.
Chapter 2 employs cross-country data for the period from 1970 to 2005 to test for potential income thresholds in the FDI-inequality nexus. The results find that in a low-income regime, FDI exerts a disproportionately positive impact on the relatively poor and hence improves income distribution. In a high-income regime, FDI benefits everyone in a society under a similar fashion and thus has no significant impact on income distribution.
Chapter 3 debates the role of government in the process of economic development and highlights how government can affect economic performance by its sheer size and its quality. The study conducts heterogeneous panel cointegration techniques in a common factor modeling framework. For a sample of developed and developing countries over the period 1984-2011, the empirical results present that, on average or in general, better governance significantly improves economic development whereas government size measured by government expenditure exerts a significant and negative effect on economic development. When proxied by taxes, government size increases economic development, on average. However, large variations are also detected, which means that some countries may benefit from large government size while some countries may lose from large taxation.
Chapter 4’s aim is to analyze the effects of health expenditure on economic development. Particularly, this study utilizes heterogeneous panel cointegration techniques in a mean group-modeling framework (Pedroni, 2001). During the period 1995-2011, we discover that health care expenditure, on average, exerts a significant and negative effect on economic development in separate group samples of middle-income and high-income countries. As for low-income countries, health care expenditure exerts negligible impacts, in general, whereas large differences among countries do exist. |
