Intergenerational Wealth Elasticity in Japan

This study estimates the intergenerational wealth elasticity using original Japanese survey data and assesses factors explaining the intergenerational wealth elasticity, such as income, educational level, bequests and preferences. The age‐adjusted elasticity of child wealth with respect to parental wealth ranges from 0.266 to 0.367, and transition matrices indicate that the intergenerational transmission of wealth persists more strongly in the tails of the distributions. The correlation between parent and child wealth mainly stems from income, education and bequests, which jointly constitute 63.9% of the wealth elasticity.     

劳动力自由迁移为何如此重要?——基于代际收入流动的视角

未考虑人口迁移影响的代际收入弹性估计存在偏误。本文将人口迁移与区域特性纳入代际收入弹性估计方程,并运用迁移概率作为局部工具变量进行估计,发现迁移者的代际收入弹性不到未迁移者的一半。而当前我国代际收入流动的主要问题在于部分人群面临"代际低收入传承陷阱",他们可以通过迁移从而增加就业机会等方式摆脱这一陷阱,这至少可以使一代人免受代际低收入传承的困扰。进一步分析迁移对代际收入传递路径的影响,结果表明教育在可识别的代际收入传递路径中贡献最大,而迁移强化了这一影响。鉴于人口迁移对代际收入流动的重要影响,政府部门有必要进一步采取措施降低劳动力自由迁移的障碍,并合理分配教育资源,以增进社会公平程度。     

代际收入流动性与收入不平等——基于面板数据联立方程模型的分析

利用CHNS数据,在测度收入不平等的代际传递性的基础上,通过面板数据联立方程模型实证分析代际收入流动与收入不平等之间的关系。实证研究结果表明,收入不平等程度的上升阻碍了代际收入的流动,而代际收入弹性的提高也会导致收入不平等状况的恶化。     

INTERGENERATIONAL INCOME MOBILITY IN URBAN CHINA

This paper estimates the intergenerational income elasticity for urban China, paying careful attention to the potential biases induced by income fluctuations and life cycle effects. Our preferred estimate indicates that the intergenerational income elasticity for father–son is 0.63. This suggests that while China has experienced rapid growth of absolute incomes, the relative position of children in the distribution is largely related to their parents' incomes. By investigating possible causal channels, we find that parental education plays one of the most important roles in transmitting economic status from parents to children.     

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.     

Gender Differences in Educational Attainment: Evidence on the Role of Tracking from a Finnish Quasi‐experiment

In this paper we study the relationship between the timing of tracking of pupils into vocational and academic secondary education and gender differences in educational attainment and income. It is argued that in a comprehensive system, where students are tracked into vocational and academic schools relatively late (age 15–16), girls are more likely to choose the academic track than boys. We exploit the Finnish comprehensive school reform of the 1970s to analyse this hypothesis. This changed the Finnish school system from a selective to a comprehensive structure and postponed tracking from the age of 10–11 to 15–16. Since the reform was not implemented at the same time throughout the country, we can observe members of the same cohorts under both systems. The shift to a comprehensive system was found to increase gender differences in the probability of choosing an academic secondary education and of continuing onto academic tertiary education. Moreover, the reform decreased the gender wage gap in adult income by four percentage points.     

Do birth order and family size matter for intergenerational income mobility? Evidence from Sweden

Previous studies of intergenerational income mobility have not considered potential birth-order or family-size effects in the estimated income elasticity. This article uses a large sample of individuals born between 1962 and 1964; income elasticities with respect to parents’ incomes are estimated for individuals with different birth-order positions and family sizes. Results based on labour income and total income for sons and daughters are reported separately. The elasticity tends to decrease with family size as well as with birth order for a given family size, especially in the labour-income analysis of fathers and sons.     

中国城镇养老保险制度改革的收入分配效应——基于2002年城镇住户调查数据的定量分析

Using the micro data of Urban Household Survey made by the National Bureau of Statistics of China(NBS) in 2002, this paper studies quantitatively the distributional effects of Public Pension Reform in urban China, from intragenerational and intergenerational perspectives, by measuring lifetime net benefits that urban employees obtain under the public pension system in 1997 and the newest one announced in December 2005, respectively. The results indicate that the regressive income transfer existing before implementation of the reform is improved as a consequence of the 1997 reform. However, the Act of 2005 Reform generates the obvious inclination of the regressive income transfer among people who exceed 40 years old in 2002. On the other hand, from the viewpoint of intergenerational distribution, the intergenerational inequality resulted from 1997 reform is greater than that from 2005 reform. Moreover, all generations would receive higher lifetime net benefits under the Act of 2005 Reform, but it must be based on sustainable pension system and participants’ full pension contribution during their duration of employment. __________ Translated from Jingji yanjiu 经济研究(Economic Research Journal), 2007, (3): 70–80, 91     

THE INTERGENERATIONAL CORRELATION BETWEEN CHILDREN'S ADULT EARNINGS AND THEIR PARENTS' INCOME: RESULTS FROM THE MICHIGAN PANEL SURVEY OF INCOME DYNAMICS

Intergenerational correlations between parental income and child earnings reflect the extent of intergenerational economic mobility and equality of opportunity. Previous estimates are about 0.2, but these estimates suffer from a number of problems, including the use of but one year of observations and of nonrandom samples. We present new estimates based on the Panel Study of Income Dynamics. These estimates suggest correlations over 0.5 with longer-run income and earning measures, as well as some gender and race differences and some impact of liquidity constraints. They also suggest that the intergenerational elasticity is greater as parental income increases, the opposite of the Becker-Tomes conjecture.     

Intergenerational wealth transmission in Great Britain

We document the intergenerational wealth transmission between adult offspring and their parent's using the Wealth and Assets Survey for Great Britain. We estimate an intergenerational wealth elasticity of 0.4 and Rank-Rank elasticity of 0.3 and find intergenerational wealth transmission for individuals in their 60s is lower than for those currently aged in their 30s and early 40s, though rank based estimates are stable. Our estimation results imply that the intergenerational wealth elasticity is 3.8 percentage points higher when comparing people with those the same age 6 years previously suggesting strong evidence of higher intergenerational wealth persistence in younger age cohorts. Taken together, the findings have important implications for future wealth inequalities and must be addressed.