Social organization and its impact on economic growth in China

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the direct and indirect impacts of social organization in promoting Chinese economic growth. It adopts empirical research to test the correlated hypotheses, and tries to put forward some policy suggestions.

Design/methodology/approach

Social organizations are measured by four indicators in this paper. It proposes five hypotheses about the impact of social organization on economic growth and builds an economic growth model including social organization. The ordinary least squares and stepwise regression methods are conducted to estimate the economic growth model with the data from 1999 to 2015.

Findings

Through the empirical analysis, it finds that the added value of social organization, human capital, investment and government budget expenditure affect economic growth significantly. The number of social organization at the end of each year has a positive significant effect on entrepreneurship, while the added value and growth rate of it have a negative effect on it. The numbers of social organization and full-time employee have significant effect on number to workers in the labor force. Only the number of social organization has positive significant effect on public education.

Originality/value

This paper conducts an empirical study on the impact of social organization on economic growth in China and fills a gap of the role of social organization on the economy in developing countries. The results provide referenced information for public policy-making.

Citation

Chen, Y. and Sun, L. (2018), "Social organization and its impact on economic growth in China", Journal of Economic Studies, Vol. 45 No. 1, pp. 126-143. https://doi.org/10.1108/JES-04-2016-0093