中文摘要：

大量研究发现保险业发展可以影响经济增长，但对于保险业的结构特征和区域差异对经济增长是否有作用却鲜有涉及。本文运用中国31个省份（直辖市）在1999年～2008年间的面板数据，利用固定效应模型和系统广义矩方法进行了计量分析。我们发现提高保险市场上中小保险公司的市场份额，可以有效地促进经济增长，市场份额的平方项和经济增长负相关，即中小保险公司份额和经济增长之间存在“倒U型”关系；提高寿险深度可以促进经济增长，财险深度的提高则会抑制经济增长。本文还构建了相对保险深度指标对全国样本进行分类，发现不同区域保险业结构对经济增长的影响规律存在一定的差异。

英文摘要：

Many studies have revealed that insurance industry development may contribute to economic growth, but few focus on the influence of insurance structure and regional difference on economic growth. Using panel data for 31 Chinese provinces during 1999 -2008, this paper used fixed-effect model and system Generalized Method of Moments to assess the effect of insurance structure and regional differences on economic growth quantitatively. The results showed the market share increase of small-to-medium insurance companies could promote economic growth, and there was a negative relation between the squared term of market share of small-to-medium insurance companies and economic growth, namely an ＂inverted U shaped＂ relationship;increasing life insurance penetration would promote economic growth, while increasing property insurance penetration would constraint economic growth. This paper also used relative insurance penetration to classify Chinese insurance markets and arrived at the conclusion that different insurance structures at different regions had different impacts on local economic growth.