社会福利函数与收入不平等的度量——一个罗尔斯主义视角

本文试图从现代社会选择理论的视角探讨收入分配问题,并利用社会福利泛函方法重新解释了AKS不平等度量。文章指出并证明了:在标准福利主义假设下,如果一个社会福利函数满足凹性、连续性、匿名性、单调性和规范齐次性,且其所对应的代表性效用函数是一个严格递增的凹函数,则必定存在一个相应的AKS不平等指数;进一步利用纳什和罗尔斯主义社会福利函数,分别构建了纳什-阿金森指数和罗尔斯主义AKS指数,后者独立于代表性效用函数的正单调变换,且放松了凹性假设;最后,对我国地区收入差距、城镇居民收入差距和农村居民收入差距分别进行了不同指数的测算与比较。     

收入分配不平等与经济增长:回到库兹涅茨假说

本文运用一个政治经济模型,研究在财政支出同时具有生产性和消费性,同时进入总生产函数和代表性个人的效用函数时收入分配不平等对经济增长的影响。本文的分析表明:在经济均衡时,增长率与税率呈倒U型关系。随着税率增加,经济增长率先升后降;在政治均衡时,收入分配越不平等,实际资本税率就越高,因此收入分配不平等与经济增长间存在一定程度的库兹涅茨倒U型关系     

不确定性下公共安全的经济学分析

本文把公共安全水平纳入效用函数和生产函数,由此建立了一个随机内生经济增长模型.以随机动态最优化作为基本工具,确定了均衡状态下经济均衡增长率、个人消费与财富比以及资本和债券份额.同时,还分析了经济均衡时随机扰动和个人公共安全参与度对经济增长和社会福利的影响.     

中国家庭收入流动性与收入不平等的实证研究

本文以中国营养与健康调查中连续抽取的家庭为样本,从收入流动的视角,用公理化方法和福利评价法,对我国1988—2008年间家庭收入流动性水平与结构进行了测度和分解,并估计出收入流动对中长期收入不平等的影响。结果表明:我国家庭的相对收入流动性和绝对收入流动性的变化及其对收入不平等的影响不同。绝对收入流动性呈上升趋势,而相对收入流动性呈周期变动。绝对收入增长具有"马太效应",相对收入等级流动具有"粘性"。绝对收入流动降低了中长期的绝对收入不平等,但相对收入流动加剧了相对收入不平等。     

环境规制与中国经济增长质量——基于省际面板数据的实证分析

本文构建了一个涵盖经济增长效率、产业结构优化程度、经济发展稳定性、绿色发展水平、福利改善程度和收入分配公平性六方面的经济增长质量评价体系,并基于中国省际面板数据考察了环境规制对经济增长质量的影响.结果表明:总体上看,环境规制有助于显著促进综合经济增长质量的改善;分项来看,环境规制有助于显著改善经济增长效率,促进经济绿色发展程度,提升社会福利水平.不过,环境规制显著加剧了收入不平等且环境规制对产业结构升级和经济发展稳定影响并不显著.最后,环境规制对综合经济增长质量的影响存在门槛效应,较低的环境规制强度并不能显著影响综合经济增长质量,而当环境规制强度跨越特定门槛值时,环境规制对综合经济增长质量产生显著的提升作用.     

资本收入税与社会福利

资本收入税是否会引起社会福利损失?对福利的损失有多大?这些问题对经济学家和政策制订者来讲是非常重要的。本文把公共产品引入生产函数或效用函数后,分别分析了平衡预算下和赤字预算下资本收入税的福利影响。最后,本文讨论了经济增长与社会福利的关系。     

收入分配与经济增长——基于家庭教育—生育决策的政治均衡模型

本文利用政治均衡模型(political-equilibrium),以家庭教育—生育决策为传导机制来探讨初始分配不平等对经济增长的影响。在这种机制下的基本结论为:初始分配越不平等的国家,人均经济增长越低;不平等对低收入人群的影响要大于高收入人群;分配不平等与经济增长呈现负相关,而分配不平等与分配不平等的扩大趋势呈现正相关。本文还针对我国情况建立了一个模型,对我国经济增长和不平等发展的机理进行了简要的分析,并发现社会保障体系的完善在存在生育约束政策的国家中会产生与其他国家不同的效果。     

代际流动约束下生育率与收入不平等关系的国际检验

收入不平等问题和人口生育率过低问题是当下中国面临的两大难题,但目前理论界关于人口因素与收入不平等关系的研究,很少从生育率视角来考察以及考虑代际收入流动在其中的作用.文章从理论与经验两个方面来考察生育率对收入不平等的影响,理论模型表明:在关于代际收入流动的假设下,一个经济体中生育率的提高会使穷人比重提高,进而拉大收入不平等.进一步地,文章利用1970-2011年76个国家(地区)面板数据的经验研究发现:(1)总和生育率的提高会拉大收入不平等,如果每个妇女平均多生育一个孩子,将会使基尼系数增加0.025;(2)以出生率作为总和生育率替代指标的实证结果与基准结果基本一致,这说明不同生育率测算指标高度相关且可相互替代;(3)对于代际收入流动弹性越高、收入水平越低或生育率越高的国家(地区),其生育率提高对收入不平等的拉大作用越大.文章关于生育率对收入不平等影响的作用机制和异质性特征的考察,对于我国如何在实施"全面二孩"政策下寻求应对严峻的收入分配问题之策提供了国际经验和启示.     

不确定性下公共安全的经济学分析

本文把公共安全水平纳入效用函数和生产函数,由此建立了一个随机内生经济增长模型。以随机动态最优化作为基本工具,确定了均衡状态下经济均衡增长率、个人消费与财富比以及资本和债券份额。同时,还分析了经济均衡时随机扰动和个人公共安全参与度对经济增长和社会福利的影响。     

财政支出规模、结构与社会福利的动态均衡研究

财政支出对包含经济增长与社会公平的社会福利具有重要作用.本文构建财政支出与社会福利关系函数,发现社会福利与不同类型财政支出的产出弹性密切相关.运用协整检验、误差修正模型等实证方法,研究了中国1978 - 2006年的各类支出与社会福利之间的动态均衡关系.我国应该采取有效措施,提高社教文卫支出,降低行政管理支出,优化经济建设支出,促进社会和谐发展.     

On the Value of Life in Rich and Poor Countries and Distributional Weights Beyond Utilitarianism

This paper discusses the use ofdistributional weights in CBA based on a generalBergson-Samuelson SWF. In particular it illustratessome consequences of applying a SWF characterized byconstant inequality aversion (which includes classicalutilitarianism as a special case), together with aconstant relative risk aversion utility function, whencalculating the damage costs of global warming. Itextends and clarifies earlier unintuitive results, andemphasizes that utility must be seen as fully cardinalin terms of levels in this context. In the specialcase of utilitarianism, on the other hand, it issufficient to be able to make interpersonalcomparisons of utility changes.     

Recontracting and stochastic stability in cooperative games

An evolutionary style model of recontracting is given which guarantees convergence to core allocations of an underlying cooperative game. Unlike its predecessors in the evolution/learning literature, this is achieved without assumptions of convexity of the characteristic function or a reliance on random errors. The stochastic stability properties of the model are then examined and it is shown that stochastically stable states solve a simple and intuitive minimization problem which reduces to maximizing a Rawlsian SWF for a common class of utility functions. In contrast to previous analyses, the stochastically stable state is unique for a broad class of utility functions.     

A never-decisive and anonymous criterion for optimal growth models

We address in this paper the question of the existence of a Social Welfare Function that would be sustainable and would allow us to obtain solutions to optimal growth models. We define sustainability by two new axioms called Never-decisiveness of the present and Never-decisiveness of the future. We first show that a SWF which has Never-decisiveness properties cannot be defined on a ball of $l_{\infty }^{+}$ . We must (i) restrict to the set of utility streams for which the value of the SWF is finite and (ii) introduce additional assumptions in order to obtain the Never-decisiveness properties. Our main result in this paper is therefore to show that the undiscounted utilitarian criterion is an anonymous and never-decisive criterion for optimal growth models. We consider the set of utilities of consumptions which are generated by a specific technology, namely a technology with decreasing returns for high levels of capital, and restrict ourselves to good programs, i.e., any program for which intertemporal utility is well defined.     

Maximising Happiness?

The measurement of individual happiness challenges the notion that revealed preferences only reliably and empirically reflect individual utility. Reported subjective well-being is a broader concept than traditional decision utility; it also includes concepts like experience and procedural utility. Micro- and macroeconometric happiness functions offer new insights on determinants of life satisfaction. However, one should not leap to the conclusion that happiness should be maximized, as was suggested for social welfare function maximization. In contrast, happiness research strengthens the validity of an institutional approach, such as reflected in the theory of democratic economic policy.     

Self is Never Neutral: Why Economic Agents Behave Irrationally

Modern economics understands utility from the concept of decision utility inferred from individual choice making. It explains agents' decisions or choices in turn by the paradigm of utility maximizing. From our perspective, however, this is a fatal mistake because economic agents do not always choose what they really want in order to maintain their "self-value." In fact, subjects are never neutral. When agents are not able to obtain something they want, they downplay its desirability in order to get psychological satisfaction. But when they are forced to accept what they do not want, they try to rationalize that they really did want it, again in order to save face. Although such "irrational" behavior may decrease economic utility, it gives agents psychological satisfaction and subjective comfort, thus increasing their immaterial utility. In this sense, agents remain rational when conducting such behaviors, even though they run directly contrary to neoclassical rationality concepts.     

公平性指标:从基尼系数到收入满足度差距

本文通过对财富分配、生活方式和价格水平、货币边际效用递减、评价生活质量标准以及指标构造缺陷等方面的分析,揭示了基尼系数作为公平性指标的局限性.本文认为,公平是公众认为合理的、愿意接受的规范和准则,其结果是公众的满意和社会的和谐.根据这一观点,我们可以用收入满足度来反映公众的满意程度,从而建立能反映社会公平与和谐程度的指标--收入满足度差距指标,并用德国的经验数据加以验证.     

Health Capital as a Determinant of Living Standard and Life Satisfaction. An Empirical Study

In this paper, the data from a socio—economic survey carried out in South Bohemia (a region of the Czech Republic) in the years 2003 and 2004 are used to estimate two models. The first model considers the health status of the individual to be an investment commodity, which enhances the productivity and the earning potential of the individual and thus his/her living standard. The second model considers the influence of health status of the individual on his/her life satisfaction and treats the health of the individual as a consumption commodity entering the individual preference function directly. In both models, the health status of the individual is significant in influencing dependent variables, living standard and life satisfaction respectively.     

The impact of socio-economic background on satisfaction: evidence for policy-makers

Consumer satisfaction with utility services has received increased attention from firms, consumer associations, regulators and governments since the 1990s. Evidence is mounting that consumers in specific socio-economic groups express lower satisfaction levels than their peers, at least, in some utility markets. Seeing this as part of their remit to protect consumer welfare, governments and international organizations are exploring possible demand-side policy responses with the intention of ameliorating lower satisfaction levels of these groups of consumers. However, more information on the precise relationships between satisfaction and consumers’ socio-economic background is required if policy is to be proportional and effective. This paper provides new empirical knowledge on this topic by contrasting consumers’ stated and revealed preferences for five utility services (electricity, gas, fixed and cellular telephony and Internet) across twelve European countries. We find strong evidence that consumers’ socio-economic characteristics matter: consumers with lower levels of education, the elderly and those not employed exhibit particular expenditure patterns on, and lower satisfaction levels with, some utility services. However, this relationship is uneven and depends on the socio-economic category and service in question. We conclude by highlighting five findings which may be of use to policy-makers when considering whether demand-side regulatory policies are required     

Sovereign Dilemmas: Saudi Arabia and Sovereign Wealth Funds

While the countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) can claim over half of SWF assets globally, the largest and most strategically important state, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, has heretofore lacked a dedicated investment fund. This paper challenges some of the conventional wisdom on SWFs in explaining the Saudi government's reticence to launch an SWF and its recent decision to cautiously move in this direction. First, while Washington policy makers raise fears of enemies using SWFs against US interests, Saudi foreign assets have been used in support of its continuing alliance with the United States. And second, while critics decry the lack of transparency of SWFs, the Saudi launch of a new SWF could represent a move toward greater transparency, by working to separate “private” sovereign funds from “public” ones. Indeed, the launch of a SWF fits into a broad pattern of reforms rationalising Saudi governing institutions as King Abdullah has moved to control spendthrift princes, to streamline decision making, and to attract more foreign investment.     

Job satisfaction,job match quality and labour supply decisions

This paper introduces job satisfaction into neoclassical theory of labour supply. This simple integration produces non-trivial results: job satisfaction is able to reduce disutility of labour, thus increasing labour supply; also, if job satisfaction is very high, labour could generate utility, while leisure could provide disutility. In this paper, job satisfaction, and thus job match quality, is specified in terms of appropriate collocation of the worker in the workplace; in short, the higher the matching between the investment in education and the task assigned in the workplace, the higher the job satisfaction. An empirical analysis substantiates the two main predictions of this paper, namely the key role of job satisfaction in time allocation and labour supply decisions and the plausibility of our view about job satisfaction.