收入增长与不平等对我国贫困的影响

本文运用两组家计调查数据,采用夏普里(Shaley)分解法实证分析了20世纪90年代收入增长和收入分配的变化在我国贫困变动中的作用,并特别考虑了不同贫困线、贫困指标及等价规模对实证结果的影响。分析结果表明,90年代前半期农村减贫的成功主要归因于收入的增长和不平等的下降。在90年代后半期,农村和城市都经历了不平等的快速上升和收入的缓慢增长。因此,这段时间减贫的速度下降,甚至贫困有所增加。

The Impacts of Growth and Inequality on Poverty Dynamics in China

This paper analyzes the evolution of poverty in China from the late 1980s to the late 1990s, employing a version of Shapley decomposition tailored to unit-record household survey data. The changes in poverty trends are attributed to two proximate causes-income growth and shifts in relative income distribution. Different datasets, alternative poverty lines, poverty measures and equivalence scales are used to examine the robustness of the results. Despite some ambiguities in the results, it is consistently found that reduction in rural poverty occurred in the early 1990s, owing to both income growth and improved distribution. However, in the second half of 1990s, poverty reduction slowed down and even reversed occasionally, and adverse distributional changes are the main cause.