Linkages between poverty and income inequality of urban–rural sector: a time series analysis of India’s urban-based aspirations from 1951 to 1994

This study examines the impact of urban and rural development on poverty and inequality in India before economic reform. The methodology comprises two dimensions. Modern time series methods are used to uncover the dynamic patterns of urban–rural poverty and income inequality. A machine-learning algorithm is used to determine the causal structure among the development indicators. Our results show that reductions in rural poverty appear to be a more effective in reducing both urban and rural poverty, although the costs of achieving these reductions have not been considered.     

Dynamics of the growth–inequality nexus in China: roles of surplus labor,openness, education,and technical change in province-panel analysis†

The paper examines the complex interrelationship between economic growth and the urban–rural income inequality in China by estimating a simultaneous equation system. This study uses a panel data-set that covers 29 provinces from 1988 to 2007, and compares the earlier period with the later period. It finds a robust and positive impact of the rural surplus labor on urban–rural inequality, which is consistent with Lewis’ dual economy theory. Economic growth is found to aggravate the urban–rural inequality in the earlier period, but there is no hard evidence in the later period. This implies that China has not yet, or at least by 2007, entered the second stage of the Kuznets curve. We also find no robust evidence on the impact of the inequality on growth in either period, but find robust evidence on the impact of both foreign direct investment and exports on the increasing inequality during the earlier period, whereas no significant impact in the later period is found. Finally, the spread of education reduced the inequality in the earlier period, but no such impact is robust in the later period.     

本地非农就业、外出务工与中国农村收入不平等*

随着巨大的经济和社会变革,中国的收入不平等程度发生了巨大变化。依据CHIP家庭微观调查1988-2007年的数据,使用基尼系数分解以及非参数分解等多种方法,本文试图对本地非农就业、外出务工等不同类型的家庭从业模式与农村收入不平等的关系进行较为全面的探讨。研究得出了一些有价值的结论：首先,从整体的收入分布来看,早期的农村地区的发展更多伴随着不平等程度提高,而后期经济增长则带来更多福利改善;其次,家庭主要非农收入来源是本地非农就业,外出务工所得具有缩小收入差距的作用,而本地非农就业则具有扩大作用,随着时间推移其作用程度也有所改变;最后,经济增长成果惠及不同群体,但并非平均分配,不同群体获益情况不同,增长和不平等通过作用于不同类型家庭影响到最终的收入分布。     

Decentralized Governance,Constitution Formation,and Redistribution

What determines the relative strength of central and regional governments? Why do centers engage in more or less geographically based economic redistribution? And why do some centers redistribute from urban to rural areas while others do the opposite? This research answers these questions with reference to decentralized politics at key constitutional moments. Much contemporary research underscores the importance of the intergovernmental balance of power – be it in taxing authority or decision making autonomy – on economic outcomes. Many features of that balance are rooted in bargains struck at the time of constitution writing. Here, I suggest that the key ingredients in such bargains are the number of conflicting geographically salient factor endowments, the distribution of inter-regional inequality, and the degree of intra-state inequality within rural and urban regions. The greater the level of factoral conflict, the more elites who engage in constitutional negotiations are likely to constrain the central government by providing for substantial regional veto authority. Higher levels of inter-regional inequality heighten demands for inter-regional redistribution. Given some level of regional demand for central redistribution, whether its net effect is in favor of urban or rural regions will depend on the coalitional implications of inequality within regions. I examine the argument in light of the U.S., Argentine, and Indian processes of constitution formation.     

人民币汇率制度改革的绩效与走向

由于内外部的压力,我国人民币汇率制度自2005年7月21日开始实行改革,2006年12月初,人民币兑美元升值超过5%。但是人民币的升值并没有改变中美贸易不平衡的现状,对我国经济的负面影响不大,对国内物价水平的影响也较小。总体来说,人民币汇率改革对我国长期经济发展是有利的,它是一个长期的、循序渐进的改革过程,需要摸着石头过河,任何急躁、冒进的想法和做法都是不切实际的。     

Economic Restructuring and Income Inequality in Urban China

Economic transition from a planned to a market oriented economy is often associated with a widening of income inequality. The nature of this change, however, may differ during different stages of the economic transition. This paper investigates the increase in income inequality in urban China during two phases of economic reform: a moderate reform era (1988–95) and a radical reform era (1995–99). It is found that although income inequality increased considerably during both stages, the nature and causes of the increase are different. In the moderate reform period, the increase in inequality was a result of some parts of society sharing more of the economic gain than others, and the main cause of this inequality is regional income dispersion. During the radical reform period income reductions at the lower end of the distribution is observed, and it is mainly due to the large-scale unemployment generated by labor reallocation.     

结构转变、经济增长与城乡收入差距

经济增长体现为一个结构转变的过程,并通过结构转变影响城乡收入差距。综合分析产业结构、城乡结构转变,以及经济增长对城乡收入差距的作用机理,并基于1978—2011年的相关统计数据进行实证检验。结果显示：中国的经济增长与城乡收入差距存在库兹涅茨倒u型关系;城乡二元经济结构的转变有助于缩小城乡收入差距;城市化对城乡收入差距的影响则出现阶段性特征,城乡收入差距随城市化水平的提高呈现出先扩大后缩小的特征。应注重经济增长、转变经济发展方式、以科学发展观推进城市化发展。     

Human resources in China: the birth quota, returns to schooling, and migration

Abstract. The rural elderly in China have 40% of the income of the urban elderly, spend a larger share of their income on food, are in worse health, work later into their lives and depend more on their children, lacking pensions and public services. The birth quota since 1980 has particularly restricted the childbearing of rural, less educated, women, who therefore have fewer children to rely on for support. This inequality is reinforced by increasing returns to schooling, especially beyond secondary school. Government restrictions on rural–urban migration reduces national efficiency, adds to the urban–rural wage gap and increases inequality.     

Rural–urban human capital disparity and skilled–unskilled wage inequality in China

This paper builds three‐sector general equilibrium models to investigate how a shrink of rural–urban human capital disparity generates an impact on skilled–unskilled wage inequality in China. In the basic model where the urban skilled sector and the urban unskilled sector have no upstream and downstream linkage, we find that the wage inequality will be narrowed down if the urban skilled sector is more capital intensive than the urban unskilled sector. To capture the characteristic of China's state capitalism, we build an extended model where the urban skilled sector acts as an upstream industry for the urban unskilled sector, and find that the wage inequality will be reduced if the substitution elasticity of unskilled labor and intermediate product in the urban unskilled sector is large enough. When we consider the factual characteristics of the Chinese economy, our models predict that a shrink of rural–urban human capital disparity will be helpful to reduce the skilled–unskilled wage inequality in China.     

包容性金融发展与城乡居民收入差距*——基于中国内地省级面板数据的实证研究

本文借鉴二元经济增长模型,分析了包容性金融发展与城乡居民收入差距的关系,并采用2011—2015年中国内地省级面板数据,运用面板数据模型和系统GMM模型对理论假设进行了实证检验。实证分析发现：（1）包容性金融发展对缩小城乡居民收入差距具有明显的促进作用;（2）传统银行的金融服务成本、互联网金融的数字支持服务程度对城乡居民收入差距的影响显著为负,这表明,包容性金融发展缩小城乡居民收入差距的直接作用主要是通过降低金融服务成本实现的;（3）传统银行金融包容性在缩小城乡居民收入差距方面的作用,东部比中西部更加明显,而互联网金融包容性对城乡居民收入差距的影响在中西部地区显著。据此,本文提出,应重视包容性金融发展的收入分配效应,以缩小我国城乡居民收入差距。     

Inequality in Vietnamese Urban–Rural Living Standards, 1993–2006

We investigate urban–rural inequality in Vietnam using data from the Vietnam Living Standard Surveys between 1993 and 2006. We find that mean per capita expenditure of urban households is consistently twice as much as that of rural households and that the urban–rural gap monotonically increases from the poorer to the richer groups of the expenditure distribution. To isolate factors contributing to the urban–rural gap, we apply the Oaxaca–Blinder type decomposition to a newly developed unconditional quantile regression method. Factors contributing significantly to the high urban–rural gap include inter‐group differences in education, household age structure, labor market activity, geographic location and their related returns, with education playing the most important role. Over the period, consistent with the country's massive rural–urban migration, we find that domestic remittance plays a significant role in shortening the urban–rural expenditure gap in the later years, 2002 and 2006.     

Unemployment,Wage Inequality and International Factor Movement in the Presence of Agricultural Dualism

This paper investigates how the international factor movements affect the unemployment and skilled–unskilled wage inequality with the existence of a modern agricultural sector. Our research has the new feature that we not only consider that the rural labor migrates to the urban sector but also to the modern agricultural sector. The main conclusions are that the unskilled labor outflow certainly decreases the wage inequality and unemployment rate and the influences that skilled labor movement and capital inflow have on wage inequality and unemployment rate are dependent on the factor intensity between the urban and modern agricultural sectors.     

What are the Policy Lessons from Sweden? On the Rise,Fall and Revival of a Capitalist Welfare State

This paper discusses a number of questions with regard to Sweden's economic and political development:

? How did Sweden become rich?

? What explains Sweden's high level of income equality?

? What were the causes of Sweden's problems from 1970 to 1995?

? How is it possible that Sweden, since the crisis of the early 1990s, is growing faster than most EU countries despite its high taxes and generous welfare state?

These questions are analysed using recent insights from institutional economics, as well as studies of inequality and economic growth. The main conclusion is that there is little, if any, Swedish exceptionalism: Sweden became rich because of well-functioning capitalist institutions, and inequality was low before the expansion of the welfare state. The recent favourable growth record of Sweden, including the period of financial stress (2008–10), is a likely outcome of a number of far-reaching structural reforms implemented in the 1980s and 1990s.     

Urban–rural gap and poverty traps in China: A prefecture level analysis

Urban–rural gap and regional inequality are long-standing problems in China and result in considerable number of studies. This article examines the dynamic behaviours of incomes for both urban and rural areas with a prefectural data set. The analysis is conducted by using a distribution dynamics approach, which have advantages in examination on persistence, polarization and convergence clubs. The results show that persistence and immobility are the dominant characteristics in the income distribution dynamics. The prefectural urban and rural areas converge into their own steady states differentiated in income levels. This pattern of urban–rural gap also exists in three regional groups, namely the eastern, central and western regions. Examination on the dynamics of the poorest areas shows that geographical poverty traps exist in both urban and rural prefectural areas. Our results indicate that more policy interventions are required to narrow down the urban–rural gap and to eliminate the poverty traps in China.     

经济分权、人口迁徙与大国发展之路——基于人均产出增长地区差异的实证分析

文章从分权式改革的视角分析了中国改革开放30年来的经济发展道路,总结了中国经济高速增长的主要成功经验在于政治集权下的经济分权。但是经济分权并不能有效缩小城乡、地区与贫富差距,其原因在于中国人口不能自由迁徙,对落后地区的地方政府不能实现"用脚投票"效应,从而影响了对地方政府的监督与激励作用。文章指出只有在人口自由迁徙的条件下,政治集权下的经济分权才能有效激励地方政府,特别是落后地区地方政府发展地方经济的积极性。在认清分权式改革与人口迁徙关系的基础上,正确设计下一步的改革方略,有利于中国真正走出一条大国发展之路。     

户籍制度扭曲及放松对经济的影响:理论与实证

户籍制度是我国劳动力流动的主要障碍.那么,当前我国的户籍扭曲程度几何?户籍制度放松对经济又会有怎样的影响?对这些问题的回答将有助于政府评估户籍制度改革的空间和经济效益.文章在Hansen和Prescott(2002)的两部门劳动力流动模型基础上,将工人分为农业和非农户口,引入户籍扭曲因子,构建两部门两类工人的户籍扭曲模型;然后,使用1984?2013年宏观经济数据度量户籍扭曲程度,并对2013年我国户籍制度逐渐放松过程中经济变量的变化进行模拟;最后,文章建立了包含"农业与非农"和"本地与外地"户籍差异的省份异质性户籍扭曲模型.研究表明:(1)经济和户籍制度改革的不同步导致了1984?2013年我国户籍扭曲程度呈现倒"U"形变化,且相较于韩国尚有较大的改善空间;(2)以韩国为参照,若2013年我国户籍制度完全放开,经济达到均衡时,农业部门和非农部门的就业人数将分别下降58.83%和上升26.92%,工资率将分别上升19.44%和下降6.77%,社会增加值将增长15.33%,这说明社会经济效率将得到提升,贫富差距将缩小.文章丰富和完善了户籍扭曲的理论模型,从减少劳动力流动摩擦的视角为政府制定相关政策提供了参考.     

中国居民财产分布不均等及其原因的经验分析

使用中国社会科学院经济研究所收入分配课题组1995年和2002年调查数据,本文对中国居民财产分布的不均等情况进行了描述,对这一不均等状况进行了分析。本文发现,中国居民的财产分布差距出现了快速而且明显扩大的趋势,这一扩大的趋势主要来自于城乡之间差距的急剧拉大。其中,城镇公有住房的私有化过程既造成了此间城镇财产差距的缩小,同时又扩大了城乡之间乃至全国财产的收入差距;而随着土地收益的下降,土地价值在农村居民财产总值中相对份额降低,造成其原本具有的缩小全国财产差距的作用减弱。另外,本文还认为,居民的金融资产对总财产分布不平等的推动作用将会进一步增强。     

Income mobility of individuals in China and the United States

Although much has been written about annual income inequality in China, little research has been conducted on longer‐run measures of income inequality and on income mobility. This paper compares income mobility of urban individuals in China and the United States in the 1990s. The following questions are taken up: To what extent are measures of annual income inequality misleading indicators of long‐run income inequality? How much income mobility was there in China in the first half of the 1990s and how did this compare with mobility in other countries? Have real income increases been greater for the poor or the rich? How important is the variation in permanent incomes in China and how has this changed?     

从政策角度对我国农民收入现状的一个解释

农村经济体制改革以来,我国农村经济政策的直接目标已经由以往的以增产为主逐步转向以保证农民增收为主,农民收入水平也有了很大的提高。然而,农民收入现状仍然不容乐观：一是绝对收入水平偏低；二是城乡收入差距和地区收入差距逐步加大。笔者从政策角度对我国农民收入问题进行了分析,并对我国农业政策效应形成了五个方面的基本判断。     

以制度改革推进城乡一体化进程

根据刘易斯二元经济理论，推进城乡一体化的关键是实现人口在城乡和地区间的自由流动，而在我国，限制和阻碍人口流动的主要是制度因素，制度上的二元结构阻碍了经济二元结构一元结构的转换。从这个意义上讲，城乡一体化的推行意味着一场新的制度改革和制度创新的到来。这就要求我们在推进城乡一体化的过程中，一方面必须紧紧抓住制度创新和改革这一牛鼻子；另一方面，必须尊重经济发展规律，因地制宜，切忌盲目跃进；还要尊重农民意愿，而不可由政府越俎代庖。