收入不平等、政府支出与实际汇率——基于跨国面板数据的研究

已有较多研究讨论了实际汇率的决定因素,而从收入不平等角度出发的研究并不多。本文搜集和整理了172个国家和地区1970年到2016年的跨国面板数据,分析了收入不平等对一国实际汇率的影响,并引入政府支出探究了收入分配对非贸易品部门和实际汇率的影响机制。实证检验结果表明,对于非OECD国家,收入不平等和实际汇率显著负相关,即收入越不平等,实际汇率高估越严重,而在OECD国家中这一现象并不存在。进一步的影响机制分析发现,对于非OECD国家,一国收入不平等加剧会导致该国政府支出增多,从而扩大了非贸易品部门规模,导致非贸易品的相对价格上升,使得实际汇率高估。     

Historical Patterns of Inequality and Productivity around Financial Crises

To understand the determinants of financial crises, previous research focused on developments closely related to financial markets. In contrast, this paper considers changes originating in the real economy as drivers of financial instability. To this end, I assemble a novel data set of long-run measures of income inequality, productivity, and other macrofinancial indicators for advanced economies. I find that rising top income inequality and low productivity growth are robust predictors of crises, and their slow-moving trend components largely explain these relations. Moreover, recessions that are preceded by such developments are deeper than recessions without such ex ante trends.     

Does inequality lead to a financial crisis?

The recent global crisis has sparked interest in the relationship between income inequality, credit booms, and financial crises. Rajan (2010) and Kumhof and Rancière (2011) propose that rising inequality led to a credit boom and eventually to a financial crisis in the US in the first decade of the 21st century as it did in the 1920s. Data from 14 advanced countries between 1920 and 2000 suggest these are not general relationships. Credit booms heighten the probability of a banking crisis, but we find no evidence that a rise in top income shares leads to credit booms. Instead, low interest rates and economic expansions are the only two robust determinants of credit booms in our data set. Anecdotal evidence from US experience in the 1920s and in the years up to 2007 and from other countries does not support the inequality, credit, crisis nexus. Rather, it points back to a familiar boom-bust pattern of declines in interest rates, strong growth, rising credit, asset price booms and crises.     

A Study on the Effect of Financial Inclusion on the Relationship Between Income Inequality and Economic Growth

In this article, we attempt to estimate whether financial inclusion, expressed as financial accessibility, has a positive effect on reducing income inequality. Furthermore, we estimate the effect of such financial inclusion on economic growth by reducing income inequality. From the results of our empirical analysis, we can draw the following three conclusions. First, income inequality has a very negative effect on GDP growth. The negative relationship between income inequality and GDP growth is strong in low-income countries. In addition, income inequality has a stronger effect on reducing economic growth in high-fragility countries. Second, progressivity is not a major factor in reducing income inequality in low-income countries or in high-fragility countries. Finally, financial inclusion improves the relationship between income inequality and economic growth. The reduction in income inequality through financial inclusion changes the negative relationship between income inequality and economic growth into a positive relationship. This trend is stronger in high-fragility countries than in low-fragility countries.     

我国城乡收入差距的库兹涅茨效应识别与农村金融政策应对路径选择

本文首先选取1985年至2009年各省的数据,构建Panel Data模型实证检验了我国城乡收入差距的变化趋势,结果表明存在明显的库兹涅茨效应,即我国的城乡收入差距随着经济的增长,呈现先扩大再缩小的变化趋势,印证了我国过去属于先增长,后分配的经济发展模式。随后,基于全国的整体样本以及按照农业产值在全国农业总产值中所占比重划分的农业大省和非农业大省的数据样本,检验了各种农村金融政策的有效性,结果显示并非所有的政策手段都能够达到预期效果,甚至还有一些政策的结果事与愿违。因此,在发展农村金融,改善城乡收入差距的政策选择方面,必须审时度势和因地制宜,才能够达到事半功倍的效果。     

The financial Kuznets curve: Evidence for the euro area

The paper introduces a new specification of the Kuznets curve, where turning point per capita income is conditioned on the level of financial development. We then provide new evidence on income inequality dynamics for the euro area (EA) countries since the mid-1980s. We find evidence in favor of an EA-wide financial Kuznets curve, also resilient to the recent financial and economic crises. From a policy perspective, our findings highlight the importance of financial development in fostering not only economic growth, but also a more even distribution of income.     

Financial Development and Income Inequality: Long-Run Relationship and Short-Run Heterogeneity

This article examines the dynamic relationship between financial development and income inequality using the PMG. We find that financial development will reduce inequality in the long run, while it can increase inequality in the short run. Using the estimates of country-specific short-run coefficients, we also find that adverse short-run effects of financial development are associated with the vulnerabilities of countries in terms of their greater susceptibility to crises and poor quality of governance. Good governance seems to be important for achieving inclusive growth though financial development.     

信贷增长如何影响中国的收入和财富不平等

本文基于中国家庭追踪调查(CFPS)数据考察了信贷增长对中国家庭收入和财富不平等的影响。整体而言，信贷增长可以缩小家庭收入不平等，主要作用机制是信贷增长通过提高中低收入群体的劳动收入和单位时薪以缩小劳动收入不平等。同时，文献中所发现的信贷增长可能恶化收入不平等的机制——扩大家庭间非货币金融资产差距，在我国表现并不明显，原因在于中国家庭的非货币金融资产比例较低，这一点对于高收入家庭也不例外，且大部分家庭难以从金融资产交易中获利。信贷增长带来了各个收入组的房屋价值上涨，但高收入家庭房产价值上涨的幅度高于中低收入家庭，因此房价上涨扩大了不同收入家庭所持有的房产价值差异。考虑到家庭调查数据往往对高收入家庭的收入和财产覆盖不完整，上述结论可能低估了信贷增长对极少数高收入家庭收入和资产的影响。本文有助于更好地理解我国信贷增长对收入分配问题的影响，为相关政策制定提供了一定启示。     

分项收入不平等效应与收入结构的优化

从分项收入角度考察城乡收入不平等,不仅能判断产生收入不平等的原因,还能判断什么分项收入有利于增加收入总量;不仅能量化收入不平等效应,还能根据收入不平等效应来优化收入结构。研究发现,分项收入具有性质不同、大小不等的收入不平等效应,其中工资性收入扩大收入不平等的效应最强、转移性收入次之、财产性收入最小;经营性收入是唯一具有缩小收入不平等效应的分项收入。据此,我们认为,城乡居民收入结构优化的方向应该是,稳定维持工资性收入、适当调整转移性收入、适度控制财产性收入并努力增加经营性收入。     

Stock returns and income inequality: Asymmetric evidence from state level data in the U.S.

We assess the impact of stock returns on income inequality in the U.S. using linear and nonlinear models. When we use income inequality data from the U.S. as a whole, we only find un-equalizing effects of stock returns in the short run. However, when we estimate the models for each state individually, the linear model yields significant short-run effects in 38 states that last into the long run in 17 states. The numbers increase to 42 and 24, respectively, when we estimate the nonlinear model. In the most affected states, we find that positive stock returns have un-equalizing effects on income inequality and negative returns have equalizing effects.     

The risk of financial crises: Is there a role for income inequality?

Could macroeconomic factors such as income inequality be the real root cause of financial crises? We explore a broad variety of financial and macroeconomic variables and employ a general-to-specific model selection process to find the most reliable predictors of financial crises in developed countries over a period of more than 100 years. Our in-sample results indicate that income inequality has predictive power beyond loan growth and several other financial variables. Out-of-sample forecasts for individual predictors show that their predictive power tends to vary considerably over time, but income inequality has predictive power in each forecasting period.     

Heterogeneous life-cycle profiles, income risk and consumption inequality

Was the increase in income inequality in the US due to permanent shocks or merely to an increase in the variance of transitory shocks? The implications for consumption and welfare depend crucially on the answer to this question. We use Consumer Expenditure Survey (CEX) repeated cross-section data on consumption and income to decompose idiosyncratic changes in income into predictable life-cycle changes, transitory and permanent shocks and estimate the contribution of each to total inequality. Our model fits the joint evolution of consumption and income inequality well and delivers two main results. First, we find that permanent changes in income explain all of the increase in inequality in the 1980s and 1990s. Second, we reconcile this finding with the fact that consumption inequality did not increase much over this period. Our results support the view that many permanent changes in income are predictable for consumers, even if they look unpredictable to the econometrician, consistent with models of heterogeneous income profiles.     

Inequality and the US import demand function

In this paper we investigate the empirical importance of changes in inequality on the demand for imports by examining US data from 1948 to 2007. We find evidence of a long-run relationship of a standard imports equation including income inequality. The existence of a cointegrating equation in imports, income, relative prices and inequality exists not only for aggregate real imports but also for more disaggregated categories as well. The evolution of inequality seems to have a large and positive influence on the demand for imports in the US with the exception of imports of services whereas the impact of inequality on imports of durables is more ambiguous. Our results are robust to alternative methods of estimating cointegration equations.     

Inequality and Growth Reconsidered: Lessons from East Asia

East Asian economies have experienced rapid growth over threedecades, with relatively low levels of income inequality, andappear to have also achieved reductions in income inequality.We argue that policies that reduced poverty and income inequality,such as emphasizing high-quality basic education and augmentinglabor demand, also stimulated growth. Closing two virtuous circles,rapid growth and reduced inequality led to higher demand for,and supply of, education, Moreover, low levels of income inequalitymay have directly stimulated growth. We present cross-economyregression results that are consistent with a positive causaleffect of low inequality on economic growth and with low inequalityof income as an independent contributing factor to Fast Asia'srapid growth. We conclude that policies for sharing growth canalso stimulate growth. In particular, investment in educationis a key to sustained growth, both because it contributes directlythrough productivity effects and because it reduces income inequality.     

Unequal inequalities: Do progressive taxes reduce income inequality?

This paper analyzes the effect of changes in the structural progressivity of national income tax systems on observed and actual income inequality. Using several unique measures of progressivity over the 1981–2005 period for a large panel of countries, we find that progressivity reduces inequality in observed income, but has a significantly smaller impact on actual inequality, approximated by consumption-based Ginis. An empirical comparative analysis shows that the differential effect on observed versus actual inequality is much larger in countries with weaker legal institutions. We also find that structural progressivity has a greater equalizing effect in environments that support pro-poor redistribution. Substantial differences in inequality response to changes in top versus bottom rates are also uncovered.     

Bridging the Gaps: Credits,Adoption, and Inequality

We examine here the role of credits on technology adoption and inequality from the perspective of developing countries. Utilizing a model of exogenous growth, with heterogeneous labor and technical progress embodied in physical capital, we find that credits can contribute to a faster adoption and to reducing income inequality. Thus, a virtuous cycle of credits, a shorter technological gap, less inequality, and economic growth is feasible to be created when there is full liquidity in the market. When credits are constrained, the cycle loses virtuosity, where the economy can lose up to two points in growth due to credit constraints.     

CHANGES IN POVERTY AND INEQUALITY IN DEVELOPING COUNTRIES

This paper presents new data on poverty, inequality, and growthin those developing countries of the world for which the requisitestatistics are available. Eco-nomic growth is found generallybut not always to reduce poverty. Growth, however, is foundto have very little to do with income inequality. Thus the "economiclaws" linking the rate of growth and the distribution of benefitsreceive only very tenuous empirical support here.      

Income Distribution and Aggregate Saving: Theory and China’s Evidence

Using a parsimonious heterogeneous-agent general equilibrium model, this study reveals a positive causal effect of income inequality on the aggregate saving rate. In the model economy, benevolent individuals save to leave offspring bequests. Since bequests are luxury, the rich have a higher marginal propensity to save. Then, else equal, a fall in income inequality will lower the economy-wide saving rate. The model predicts an augmented aggregate saving function: the aggregate saving rate depends positively not only on the aggregate income level, but also on the dispersion of income. We find some empirical support for this hypothesis using China’s province-level longitudinal data.     

Migration and the welfare state: The economic power of the non-voter?

This paper investigates the impact of emigration on the political choice of the size of the welfare state. Mobility has two countervailing effects: the political participation effect and the tax base effect. With emigration, the composition of the constituency changes. This increases the political influence of the less mobile part of the population. But the new political majority then also has to take into account that emigration reduces tax revenues and thereby affects the feasible set of redistribution policies. We find that the direction of the total effect of migration depends on the initial income distribution in the economy. Our results also contribute to the empirical debate on the validity of the median-voter approach in cross-country studies for explaining the relation between income inequality and redistribution levels. JEL Classification F22 · H50 · D31 · D72     

Optimal taxation and top incomes

In many high-income countries over the past three decades there has been both large growth in inequality of wages and income and a shift in the burden of taxation from the top to the middle of the income distribution. A literature has developed which focuses on optimal tax rates for the top 1 % of the income distribution. In contrast, this paper considers the effect of inequality growth on the structure of a piecewise linear tax system defined over the entire income distribution. Our results suggest that the appropriate response to the increases in inequality would have been a shift towards a tax system with a lower tax rate in the lower half of the distribution together with a highly marginal rate progressive structure in the upper half, a clear differentiation between the top 10 % and the top 1 % and a higher top tax rate. Further inequality growth strengthens these characteristics of the optimal tax structure.