How Does the Aging Trend Affect Medical Innovation?

Most aging countries in the world are experiencing the problems of insufficient motivation for technological innovation and excessive medical costs. This research thus utilizes medical patent applications and medical innovation efficiency to measure medical innovation for 41 countries covering 2001 to 2017 by the panel fixed effects model. We incorporate government efficiency, corruption, education, GDP, pollution, unemployment, and current health expenditure as control variables to investigate the impacts of aging on medical innovation. The conclusion presents that the aging trend could stimulate a gentle increase of medical innovation outputs. We also offer diversified evidence of aging’s impact on medical innovation from differentiated degrees of aging. The evidence proves that political party attitudes and urbanization play a positive role in regulating the relationship between aging and medical innovation. Additionally, we carry out sub-samples of former communist countries, universal medical care, and INIA (International Institute on Aging) to examine the heterogeneity of aging’s influence on medical innovation. Finally, based on our results, alternative beneficial implications are provided for reference