“双低一代”的社会经济特征研究

由于即将退休与刚退休的这一代人拥有低赡养比与低抚养比，本文称其为“双低一代”。本文基于宏观统计数据与微观调查数据，利用分位回归等方法对“双低一代”的社会学特征与经济学特征进行研究，发现其具有人口总量较多、教育背景优良、社会阅历丰富、消费倾向明显等特征。此外，通过对“双低一代”的人力资本存量进行测算，提出充分发挥“双低一代”余热、缓解老龄化问题的政策建议。     

Migration,population aging,and income inequality in China

In this study, we examine the effects of four demographic factors, namely, birth, death, natural aging, and net migration, on population aging and income inequality in China. We use the official Chinese data and the China Household Income Project Survey data for the 2007–2013 period and apply a decomposition model based on the Shapley method. Unlike previous studies, we include migration in our decomposition model and find that natural aging is the primary factor contributing to population aging in both urban and rural areas. Further, migration may accelerate population aging in rural areas. Moreover, migration contributes to reducing income inequality in urban areas, while widening income inequality in rural areas. The effect of migration is larger than those of birth, death, and natural aging on income inequality. The robustness checks confirm these conclusions.     

老龄化与碳排放：消费效应还是生产效应？——基于2002-2017年中国省级面板数据的实证研究

人口老龄化是经济增长的一大阻碍,它对碳排放的影响是做出环境政策抉择的关键因素.以中国2002—2017年的省级面板数据为研究样本,从理论与实证两个层面分析人口老龄化与碳排放的关系及影响机制.一方面,构建包含碳排放的世代交叠模型(overlapping generations,OLG),发现老龄化主要通过消费效应和生产效应两个路径对碳排放产生影响;另一方面,从实证层面发现老龄化与碳排放之间存在倒"U"形关系,而且消费效应在人口老龄化与碳排放的关系中起到部分中介作用,生产效应的影响则不显著.     

The long breadth of cities: revisiting worldwide urbanization patterns, 1950–2030

ABSTRACT

A comparative analysis of population dynamics worldwide contributes to profile distinctive demographic and economic trajectories of urban growth, discriminating processes of settlement concentration or dispersion under sequential cycles of urbanization. However, a wide-ranging characterization of urban cycles based on demographic dynamics worldwide is still missing. The present work is aimed at filling such a gap analysing long-term changes (1950–2030) in annual population growth rate of 1691 urban agglomerations with more than 300,000 inhabitants in 74 world countries. Results of this study indicate that metropolitan growth worldwide was associated with largely variable rates of population growth, highly positive before 2000 and progressively reducing over recent decades. Despite important differences at continental (and country) scale, demographic expansion of urban agglomerations showed two contrasting phases with a break point in the 1980s denoting a progressive reduction in spatial heterogeneity of population growth rates and a moderate slowdown in demographic dynamics. Intensity of urban expansion and spatial heterogeneity in population growth rates across metropolitan agglomerations evidences a trade-off between fast and slow demographic dynamics. These findings can be better understood to support theories of sequential city growth, making a suitable contribution to policy making, especially in countries where urban population is expanding more rapidly.     

Financial risk attitudes and aging in Australia

A number of empirical studies document that people tend to become more risk averse as they get older. But other studies find only little evidence that age matters for financial risk attitudes. This prompts a call for revisiting the relationship between age and risk attitude to better support policy recommendations. The current paper contributes to this effort by utilising large-scale population data to conduct a dynamic panel analysis. Care is taken to avoid the problem of endogeneity of lagged risk attitude in modelling its effects. Analysis reveals that individuals' past risk attitude has a positive effect on their current risk attitude. However, there is only little evidence that risk attitude and age are systematically related. Our results shed some light on the previous contradictory empirical findings in the literature and suggest that past risk attitude is potentially of greater relevance than chronological age in determining current risk attitude.     

农地权益保障与农业转移人口市民化

研究目的：明晰农地权益对农业转移人口市民化的影响，进而揭示当前全国各地对农业转移人口农地权益保护状况。研究方法：基于Probit模型的实证分析。研究结果：（1）从全国范围来看，农业转移人口的农地权益只得到部分保障；（2）农地权益保障状况存在较大的地区差异，区域经济越发达，农地权益保障越完善；（3）农地权益只得到部分保障对推动农业转移人口向城市迁移起着促进作用，但却对农业转移人口市民化有着显著负面影响。研究结论：农地权益保障是农业转移人口市民化的重要影响因素，农地权益的不充分保障对农业转移人口市民化具有负面影响，而经济越不发达的地区这种影响越显著。     

人口结构与地方政府义务教育公共支出——基于中国省级面板数据的研究

利用我国2007-2011年间31个省市地区的平衡面板数据,从供给和需求两方面出发实证分析我国义务教育公共服务支出影响因素。在影响供给的因素讨论中,考察了财政收入、财政分权程度、转移支付、政府竞争力等因素。在影响需求的因素讨论中,探讨了人口自然与非自然结构,人口家庭结构对义务教育公共服务需求的影响。最后将我国分为东部、中部、西部三个地区,进一步剖析我国义务教育公共服务支出影响因素的区际差异。     

Do pensions foster education? An empirical perspective

The paper examines the effect of population ageing on public education spending. On the one hand, ageing is expected to have a negative effect on education, as an increasing number of retirees results in ‘intergenerational conflict’ and, hence, the condemnation of education expenditure. On the other hand, ageing, in combination with pay-as-you-go pension systems, offers incentives for the working-age generation to invest in the public education of the young in order to ‘reap’ the benefits (that is, higher income tax/contributions) of their greater future productivity. Empirical evidence derived from the application of a fixed effects approach to panel data for OECD countries shows that the increasing share of elderly people has a non-linear effect on education spending. This indicates a certain degree of intergenerational conflict. Nevertheless, we find that future population ageing, which reinforces the mechanism linking public education and pensions, reflects positively on education expenditure. Furthermore, by disaggregating total education expenditure by educational levels, we observe that this effect is led by levels of non-compulsory education, probably as a reflection of the direct connection to labor productivity.     

Macroeconomic implications of population aging: Evidence from Japan

Population aging is an important feature of Japan’s economy, which since 2006 has become a super-aged society. Changes in the age distribution of the population have important macroeconomic implications. Using annual data for 1960–2015, this study tests whether population age shares have long run influences on domestic saving, domestic investment, real GDP, inflation, the fiscal balance, and the current account balance. Cointegration is found between each macroeconomic variable and the demographic variables, which is a key finding of the analysis. The main empirical findings from the long-run cointegrating equations are that the effects of demographic change on the macroeconomic variables are statistically significant and quite strong. Alternative variants of the United Nation’s population projections provide further evidence of the importance of the demographic changes for Japan’s macroeconomic future. This study finds that future trends of key macroeconomic variables are not monotonic, but rather that long swings in the demographic factors produce a mixture of moderate growth periods and episodes of GDP stagnation.     

Political budget cycles revisited: Testing the signalling process

A widespread view in the ‘political budget cycles’ literature is that incumbent politicians seek to influence voters’ perceptions of their competence and/or preferences by using the composition of the fiscal budget as a signalling tool. However, little is known about whether voters actually receive and perceive the signal in that way. To empirically assess the relevance of the signalling channel at the municipal level, we conducted a survey among 2000 representative German citizens in 2018. Only a small fraction of voters feel well-informed about the fiscal budget signal and use the information it contains to decide whether to vote for the incumbent politician. Persons paying more attention to the signal sent by local politicians live in smaller municipalities, are more satisfied with their economic situation, are more educated, and do not feel that they are being electorally manipulated. Our analysis raises doubt about the relevance of budget composition as a signalling mechanism for voters at the local level.