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Business & Economics

CLIMATE CHANGE, REGIONAL GENERAL BUDGET EXPENDITURES, AND CONCENTRATION OF THE ELDERLY POPULATION⁶
Siyuan Du, Feng Zhao, Lianqiu Wang, Jirui Yang

ABSTRACT: The concentration of the elderly population is not only a result of increased longevity but also a result of population mobility. Climate has an impact on both factors. To analyse how climate change affects the agglomeration of the elderly population, the impact of climate change on the agglomeration of the elderly population was explored, and the threshold test and mediating effects were further examined by utilising the 2007-2019 panel data at the provincial level of China, based on push-pull theory and elderly migration theory. Results show that, all three measures of climate-temperature, precipitation, and hours of sunshine-significantly affect the degree of elderly population agglomeration, in which elevated temperature promotes the agglomeration of the elderly population, while both precipitation and hours of sunshine inhibit the agglomeration of the elderly population. These effects are actually because climate change changes the general budget expenditure of the regional finance, and then acts on the agglomeration of the elderly population in the region. In addition, there is a single threshold for the effect of temperature and sunshine hours on the concentration of the elderly population, and the threshold effect test of precipitation is not significant. The conclusions obtained from this study are conducive to enriching and improving the theory of elderly population agglomeration, as well as providing countermeasure suggestions for the government, enterprises, and individuals.

KEYWORDS:  climate change, agglomeration of older populations, regional budget expenditure.

JEL classification:  H53, J15. Q54.

⁶Acknowledgments:  Acknowledgments. This study was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 42371437), Soft Science Project of Science and Technology Department of Sichuan Province (No.2024JDR0223), 2023 Central Guidance for Local Scientific and Technological Development Funding Projects of Science and Technology Department of Sichuan Province (No. 2023ZYD0148), Sichuan Provincial Philosophy and Social Science Planning Major Project (No. 22ZDYC112).