When income differences hurt or excite: The nonlinear effect of regional inequality on subjective wellbeing

Combining information from the European Union Statistics on Income and Living Conditions and the European Social Survey, we investigate the relationship between subjective well-being and income inequality using regional inequality indicators and individual data. We assume that inequality aversion and perception of social mobility affect the impact of regional inequality on subjective well-being in opposite directions. We find evidence of an inverse U-shaped effect of inequality, where inequality starts to have a positive effect on subjective well-being that becomes negative with a switch point before the average of the Gini index for the entire sample. The rationale for our nonlinear finding is that Hirschman's tunnel effect (and the positive effect of perceived social mobility) prevails for low levels of inequality, while inequality aversion and negative relative income effects are relatively stronger when inequality is higher. Robustness checks on different sample splits are consistent with the hypothesis of the two drivers.     

Income Mobility and Income Inequality in Rural China

The economic literature has argued for a long time that income mobility could attenuate the degree of cross-sectional inequality by offering people opportunities to improve their socio-economic position. Using the longitudinal data from the China Health and Nutrition Survey (CHNS) from 1989 to 2011, we measure income mobility as the degree to which longer-term incomes are distributed more or less equally than yearly income. Five main results are emphasized. First, there is strong income mobility in rural China that partly offsets yearly income inequality. Second, income mobility has decreased since the 2000s, indicating that income distribution is becoming more rigid. Third, mobility is mainly associated with transitory income fluctuations, particularly in the two tails of the distribution. Fourth, income mobility has an equalizing effect on income distribution. Fifth, we show that non-agricultural income mobility has substantially increased over the period and that its equalizing nature has also recently increased. While the development of the non-agriculture sector in rural China was a crucial factor in explaining the increase in rural inequality until the mid-2000s, we suggest that the large-scale generalisation of such non-agricultural opportunities partly accounts for the decline in rural inequality observed since the mid-2000s.     

农户家庭收入流动水平的结构差异及其影响因素分析*——基于“远亲”与“近邻”的视角

本文实证分析了农民收入流动水平的结构差异及其影响因素。结果表明：低收入阶层的农户家庭收入流动较强,高收入阶层农户家庭稳固其地位的能力逐渐增强,其家庭收入固化趋势较为明显。流动效应是导致农户家庭收入流动水平差异的主要原因,而结构效应中家庭经营性收入流动水平是缩小差异的最大贡献者。从家庭亲属亲密程度和近邻便利程度的视角来看,“远亲”不如“近邻”的现象在农户家庭收入流动水平上表现明显。家庭亲属性质、亲属关系层级分别对家庭经营性收入和工资性收入流动性存在较强的显著影响。而近邻就业机会越高,组织程度越强,地区区位优势越好,越有利于农户家庭收入流动水平的提升。     

China's regional income disparityAn alternative way to think of the sources and causes1

Using data on China's provincial economies for the period 1978–2005, we decomposed the causes and factors that have contributed to inter‐regional per capita income disparity. Variance in capital per employee and variance in capital elasticity are found to be the two main sources of income disparity while the employment–labour force ratio is shown to be an important factor in containing the rise of income disparity. An analysis on inter‐regional factor reallocation effects reveals their relatively small and insignificant contributions to overall growth performance. It is also discovered that capital has in most years flowed in the right direction to pursue higher marginal productivity across provincial economies. Inter‐provincial labour movement, on the other hand, had not displayed significant equilibrating effects until institutional reforms started to allow freer inter‐regional labour mobility in later years. Generally, we conclude that market‐oriented factor mobility has played a crucial role in equalizing factor returns as well as enhancing growth efficiency across regions.     

区域一体化政策、要素流动与居民获得感提升*——基于政策文本的量化分析

区域一体化政策实施的意图是通过弱化要素流动壁垒、缩小区域发展差距，从而提升居民获得感。本文从交通互联互通、行政壁垒弱化、经济合作和劳动力流动四个角度构建政策措施指数，从缩小地区居民收入差距和改善居民获得感两个层面研究区域一体化战略的政策效果。研究发现：（1）区域一体化政策在缩小地区居民收入差距的基础上，可对等地提升居民获得感，行政措施是提升居民获得感的主要政策措施。（2）地区居民收入差距的收敛是居民获得感提升的客观基础，区域一体化政策缩小地区居民收入差距的政策效果在不同阶段和不同地区具有异质性。（3）区域一体化政策中的交通措施和行政措施通过引导资本形成扩散效应能显著缩小地区居民收入差距，是提升居民获得感的主要渠道。     

户籍门槛、流动性差异与地区收入差距

按学历、技能设置的落户条件在一定程度上强化了不同人力资本禀赋劳动力的流动性差异,这种流动性差异深刻的影响着人力资本的区域间分布和现代部门产业的空间格局,从而为解释地区收入差距的形成与扩大提供了新的视角。本文将户籍门槛变量引入新经济地理模型,并利用数值模拟技术分析在不同水平的户籍门槛、贸易成本、人力资本份额下,不同技能劳动力的空间选择及地区收入差距变动。研究结果表明,需求与供给效应的彼此强化使得低技能劳动力与高技能劳动力在同一区域聚集,但因技能而设置的户籍门槛作为分散力阻碍了低技能劳动力的空间聚集过程。伴随区域一体化推进,贸易成本不断降低,高技能劳动力将在发达地区高度集聚,而如果户籍门槛保持不变,低技能劳动力将均匀地分布在两个区域。高技能劳动力的地理集中是导致地区收入差距持续扩大的主要原因,降低贸易成本能够有效缩小地区收入差距,而降低户籍门槛或提高人力资本份额均使地区差距变得更大。本文进一步回顾了改革开放以来中国出现的劳动力回流现象、人力资本的迁移趋势、以及改革开放以来地区收入差距的收敛和发散趋势,发现经验数据与理论命题的结论基本相符。     

Income mobility and risk during the business cycle: Comparing adjustments in labour markets in two Latin-American countries

This paper uses panel data from Argentina and Mexico and a new measure of mobility ‐ the Gini index of mobility ‐ to answer three questions. First, is there a trend towards rising labour income mobility over time in these two countries? Second, is there a relationship between income mobility and growth common to both countries, or does that relationship depend on the institutional features of each country’s labour markets? Third, do we observe more labour income mobility within some groups such as the young and the less educated than within other groups? JEL classification: D31, E32, J63.     

Intergenerational Earnings and Income Mobility in Spain

This paper contributes to the large number of studies on intergenerational earnings and income mobility by providing new evidence for Spain. Since there are no Spanish surveys covering long‐term information on both children and their fathers' income or earnings, we deal with this selection problem using the two‐sample two‐stage least squares estimator. We find that intergenerational mobility in Spain is similar to that in France, lower than in the Nordic countries and Britain, and higher than in Italy and the United States. Furthermore, we use the Chadwick and Solon approach to explore intergenerational mobility in the case of daughters and we find similar results by gender.     

城镇内部行业收入差距成因的实证研究

运用2012年中国劳动力动态调查微观数据,结合Heckman样本选择方法,估计垄断行业和竞争行业的收入方程,结果发现,垄断对行业收入的影响远大于性别、教育、工作经验等个人特征。运用Shapley值分解方法,考察各因素对我国城镇内部行业工资差距的贡献,结果发现,人力资本因素对行业收入差距的贡献最大。分行业看,人力资本因素能够解释垄断行业收入差距的一半左右,管理岗位对竞争行业收入差距的贡献最大,性别因素对竞争行业收入差距的贡献高出垄断行业两倍,非农户口在解释垄断行业收入差距时的贡献要远大于竞争行业。因此,缩小我国行业收入差距,亟需打破行业垄断壁垒,提高劳动者的受教育水平,减轻劳动者地区间流动障碍。     

International tax coordination: regionalism versus globalism

Tax competition for mobile capital can undermine the attempts of governments to redistribute income from rich to poor. I study whether international tax coordination can alleviate this problem, using a general equilibrium model synthesizing recent contributions to the tax competition literature. The model highlights the crucial distinction between global tax coordination and regional coordination. With high capital mobility between the tax union and the rest of the world, the welfare gain from regional capital income tax coordination is only a small fraction of the gain from global coordination, even if the tax union is large relative to the world economy.     

劳动者技能、劳动力流动与收入再分配

二元经济下劳动力的流动和收入再分配是经济学界长期关注的焦点问题之一.本文从标准的刘易斯模型所体现的经济及制度环境入手建立模型,分析劳动者技能、劳动力流动与收入再分配三者之间的关系,对照中国当前实际指明问题所在并提供相应的对策建议,为我国当前及今后相当长时期妥善处理劳动力流动及再分配问题提供了参考.     

Mobility of Top Incomes in Germany

I analyze German top income mobility using micro‐level panel data of personal income tax returns which are highly representative for top income taxpayers for the years 2001–06. Top income mobility is assessed in three dimensions: (i) persistence in top income fractiles and its stability over time, (ii) measures of individual mobility that are not dependent on the fractile size: the degree of mobility between equally sized groups and mobility in ranks, and (iii) mobility's impact on top income shares. Persistence in top income fractiles is comparatively high and fairly stable across the analyzed period. Top income recipients are less prone to downward mobility and see less variation in annual ranks than less rich tax units. Mobility's impact on income concentration is moderate. The top percentile's share is reduced by roughly 5 percent over six years.     

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。     

Distributive implications of member level income aggregation within the household: An approximation through mobility indices

This paper adapts the ethical index of income mobility first suggested by Chakravarty, Dutta and Weymark (1985) to assess the contribution of wives, husbands, and other adults' member level income to husband-wife households' income mobility according to two of the criteria discussed in the literature. For any partition of the population, a source's contribution is seen to be decomposable into within-group and between-group income mobility indices plus a term capturing sub-group differences in income shares. The approach is applied to a sample of husband-wife households where both spouses are present, extracted from the 1990–91 Encuesta de Presupuestos Familiares , the Spanish household budget survey. While the husbands' income contribution is large and positive, the contribution of wives and other adults is practically equal to zero. When mean income differences are eliminated, all member contributions to husband-wife households' income mobility are substantially reduced.
JEL classification: D31, D33.     

山西省区域收入不均等的实证分析——基于泰尔指数分解

运用泰尔指数分析了1999—2008年山西省区域收入不均等情况,对区域收入差距中的城乡收入差距及晋南、晋中、晋北三大地区农村居民的收入差距进行了分解分析。结果表明,城乡收入差距占区域收入不均等的80%以上,城市和农村内部的差距所占比例不足20%;三大地区间的农村居民收入差距对山西省总的区域收入不均等的贡献约为60%,剩下的40%则归因于三大地区各自内部的收入差距。对山西省城乡收入差距、三大地区内农村居民收入差距的成因进行了研究,并提出了缩小收入差距的对策及建议。     

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.     

On the determinants of inequality in Bosnia and Herzegovina

We provide empirical evidence on the determinants of income inequality in Bosnia and Herzegovina after the civil war. To do this, we use a an ordered probit approach and take advantage of the first post‐war household survey for the country which sheds some light on the influence of regional differences as well as household characteristics on income quintile determination. With respect to the former, we find large income differences between the two entities in the country, the Federation and Republika Srpska. Such income differences are also noticeable inside entities. On the latter, there are some signs that education, experience, and employment, among others, may help reduce the probability of income decline. Our results are robust to changes of specification as shown by applying a formal sensitivity analysis. JEL classification: O15, O10, I30.     

Mobility in China

The evidence on rank and income mobility in China reveals an important change around the year 2000. Using panel data from the China Health and Nutrition Survey we show that rank mobility fell markedly from the decade immediately preceding the millennium to the decade immediately following: in this respect China is becoming noticeably more rigid. By contrast income mobility has carried on increasing; so has income inequality. The simultaneous increase in rigidity and inequality presents China with a challenging policy problem.     

Income mobility of individuals in China and the United States

Although much has been written about annual income inequality in China, little research has been conducted on longer‐run measures of income inequality and on income mobility. This paper compares income mobility of urban individuals in China and the United States in the 1990s. The following questions are taken up: To what extent are measures of annual income inequality misleading indicators of long‐run income inequality? How much income mobility was there in China in the first half of the 1990s and how did this compare with mobility in other countries? Have real income increases been greater for the poor or the rich? How important is the variation in permanent incomes in China and how has this changed?     

Taking down the wall: Transition and inequality

In this article, we investigate the main determinants of income inequality in the transition countries of Central and Eastern Europe and the Commonwealth of Independent States during the period 1990–2018. To this end, we address a major methodological challenge that lies at the core of the cross‐country literature on income inequality: the potential endogeneity of income per capita, which is largely ignored by most empirical studies. We adopt a two‐pronged empirical strategy by (1) using trading partners’ weighted average real GDP as an instrumental variable and (2) estimating the model via the two‐stage least squares approach for static models and the generalized method of moments estimator for dynamic models. Our empirical findings are consistent with the Kuznets curve that illustrates a nonlinear relationship between income inequality and the level of economic development. We also find that the redistributive impact of fiscal policy is statistically insignificant and taxation and government spending appear to have the opposing effects on income inequality in transition economies over the sample period.