ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Public Health
Sec. Health Economics
Volume 13 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2025.1650225
This article is part of the Research TopicIntegrating Economics into Population Health: Assessing Policies and OutcomesView all 11 articles
Does the trade of medical products contribute to promoting human development?-An empirical analysis based on data from China and RCEP countries
Provisionally accepted
- Huzhou University, Huzhou, China
Select one of your emails
You have multiple emails registered with Frontiers:
Notify me on publication
Please enter your email address:
If you already have an account, please login
You don't have a Frontiers account ? You can register here
Background: As the RCEP (Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership) Agreement deepens, the role of medical product trade in safeguarding regional public health security and promoting economic development has become increasingly prominent.Methods: Based on data from 2004 to 2023, this study employs the stochastic frontier gravity model and benchmark regression model to explore the impact of China's medical product export efficiency on the development indices of RCEP countries.The findings are as follows: (1) China's medical product exports to RCEP countries exhibit simultaneous scale expansion, structural differentiation, and market concentration, with ASEAN, Japan, and South Korea as core markets and mid-to-low-end products dominating the export structure;(2) Trade efficiency evolution reflects dual mechanisms of institutional environment and technological capabilities, where governance levels and health system soundness optimize efficiency, while excessive liberalization and tax burdens increase friction costs; (3) Enhanced export efficiency indirectly promotes human development in RCEP countries by strengthening basic health service coverage, forming a "trade-health-development" transmission mechanism.To enhance export efficiency and achieve synergistic development, we propose: (1) For policymakers: Deepen institutional coordination and establish a "trade-health" collaborative governance framework to amplify public health dividends; (2) For exporters: Implement a tiered market strategy and strengthen technological innovation to enhance industrial resilience.
Keywords: RCEP, HDI, Medical products, trade efficiency, stochastic frontier gravity model
Received: 19 Jun 2025; Accepted: 21 Jul 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Wu, Liu, Zhou, Zhou and Hanjie. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Xiao Hanjie, Huzhou University, Huzhou, China
Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.