Income Inequality,Taxation, and Growth

Much recent theoretical and empirical research has focused on the relationship between income distribution and economic growth. The fiscal policy approach argues that inequality is linked to pressure for redistributionary taxation, leading to low capital investment and, therefore, growth. Empirical analyses are consonant with this view in that the long-run relationship between inequality and growth is negative. However, several empirical inconsistencies with the fiscal policy approach do emerge: (a) there exists a short-run, positive relationship between income inequality and growth and (b) the relationship between inequality and taxation is mixed, at best. This paper presents a simple theoretical model that reconciles the intuitively appealing fiscal policy approach with the empirical findings.     

经济增长速度与农村劳动力转移

经济增长与农村劳动力转移相辅相成,但归根到底,经济增长是剩余劳动力转移的助推器,解决农村劳动力转移最终要靠经济增长。根据世界部分国家和地区以及我国近几年的数据分析,农村劳动力转移速度与名义GDP的增长率之间存在着很明显的正相关关系。今年国家制定了“压经济增长、保体制改革”以及2005年“转移农业劳动力800万至1000万”的宏观调控目标,对这二者之间关系的正确解读是经济快速平稳发展的关键。通过分析我们得知,适宜经济结构下的经济高速增长是迅速转移农村劳动力的必要条件。     

Growth,Poverty, and Inequality under Jokowi

SUMMARY

The political authority of President Joko Widodo (Jokowi) was bolstered in the third quarter of 2015 by a cabinet reshuffle, his coalition's gaining a parliamentary majority, and several foreign-policy developments. Indonesia's request to rejoin OPEC, for example, after having left in 2008, seemed more about international relations than oil prices, while official visits to the Middle East and the United States allowed Jokowi to project his presidency on the international stage. He still faces resistance from within his own party, however.

Jokowi's politically bold reshuffle of economic ministers in August soon yielded a range of policy announcements. In September and October, his government introduced its first substantial set of reforms—a number of economic policy packages intended, among other things, to attract investment and stimulate domestic demand. If even half of these policies are put in place, the impact on Indonesia's economy should be tangible.

Few countries have escaped the effects of falling global commodity prices and China's growth slowdown. At 4.7%, year on year, in the third quarter Indonesia's rate of economic growth again fell short of the government's target. Slowing growth and a negative outlook have lowered market expectations and weakened the rupiah, which is also burdened by the large outstanding external debt held by corporate borrowers. Indonesia's real effective exchange rate has recently begun to depreciate, however, which may stimulate exports. Growth prospects will also improve if the substantial increase in capital and infrastructure spending allocated in the state budget is realised.

Against this backdrop, we focus on what has happened to poverty and inequality in Indonesia since Jokowi took office. The distributional impacts of the current macroeconomic climate are likely to be hardest felt by the poor. Indonesia is well known for its record on poverty reduction, but between September 2014 and March 2015 the share of the population in poverty increased, even though economic growth was close to 5.0%. Slowing growth, rising food prices, the falling real wages of farmers, and the delayed disbursement of fuel-price compensation all had an effect. Such impacts may be mitigated in the medium term by Jokowi's budget reallocations to infrastructure, if realised, and his expansion of social spending.     

异质性、经济增长与收入不平等

本文构建了一个劳动供给可变的内生增长模型,在不同消费者之问引入资本拥有量和劳动技能的双重异质性,并导出将这两种异质性与收入不平等联系起来的公式。分析表明,它们对收入不平等的作用方向是相反的;只有在以资本与技能异质性的相对量为条件时,才能得到确定的增长．不平等关系。男外,拓展的模型则考虑了劳动市场不完全性对增长和收入不均等的影响。     

不公,不平,与经济增长

收入不平与未来增长负相关,但是在控制了产权保护与法治水平以后这一关系不再存在,说明真正影响经济增长的并不是表象上收入分配的平等程度,而是经济活动内在规则的公正与否。进一步的证据表明,收入不平等程度受到产权保护与法治水平的显著影响。良好的产权保护和法治是经济公正的集中体现,有利于减少寻租,缩小收入差距,促进经济增长,本文用理论模型和实证证据来说明这一点。     

Growth,Inequality and Poverty: Looking Beyond Averages

The available evidence suggests that the poor in developing countries typically do share in the gains from rising aggregate affluence, and in the losses from aggregate contraction. But there are large differences between countries in how much poor people share in growth, and there are diverse impacts among the poor in a given country. Crosscountry correlations are clouded in data problems, and undoubtedly hide welfare impacts; they can be deceptive for development policy. There is a need for deeper micro empirical work on growth and distributional change. Only then will we have a firm basis for identifying the specific policies and programs that are needed to complement growth-oriented policies.     

Land, Factor Markets, and Inequality in Rural China: Historical Evidence

Drawing on a unique household-level data set from northeast China in the 1930s, this paper explores the connections between the distribution of land, factor markets, and income distribution. We test whether patterns of income inequality were consistent with the predictions of a market-clearing, neoclassical model linking land and labor endowments, through factor markets to household income. While the model is consistent with some features in the data, we reject the hypothesis that factor markets worked perfectly and find support for the historian's intuition regarding the disproportionate impact of land inequality in the countryside. Nevertheless, where markets were more active, especially land rental markets, excess returns to land were diminished and inequality was lowest. This suggests that factor market development played a positive role in reducing inequality in rural China.     

Inequality and Economic Growth in the UK

Open Economies Review - This paper analyses the effect of wealth inequality on UK economic growth in recent decades with a heterogeneous-agent growth model where agents can enhance individual...     

Labor Market Reform, Income Inequality and Economic Growth in China

The year 1996 was a turning point both in terms of Chinese labor market reform aria m China＇s economic growth pattern. Before 1996, labor market reform was mainly implemented through adjustment of people＇s occupation and income structure. Since 1996, employment restructuring has led to differentiation in terms of employment status. Labor market reform in the former stage resulted in slow growth in wages, whereas reform in the latter stage enhanced economic efficiency. Both stages have enabled the Chinese economy to apply its comparative advantage of low labor cost. Labor market reform has also increased income disparity and, therefore, new challenges are posed in sustaining economic growth. China needs to adjust its development strategies and introduce labor market reform that can improve income equality, so as to achieve sustainable economic development.     

财政转移支付与缩小地区差距

学者们对于财政转移支付在缩小我国地区差距中的目标定位存在分歧.本文利用财政转移支付理论和内生经济增长理论的分析表明,合理的财政转移支付政策在短期内可以缩小政府间的财力差距,在长期内能够通过影响各地的公共支出水平缩小地区经济发展差距.     

中国农村区域收入不均等变动：基于经济发展和制度变迁的解释

本文利用改革以来的中国省级农村居民收入数据,首先通过基尼系数和泰尔指数两个指标的测度,分析了中国农村区域收入不均等的变化趋势。结果发现,总体上持续扩大的农村区域收入不均等由工资性收入差异所主导,主要体现在东、中、西三大区域间。而基于收入决定因素的夏普利分解结果则进一步表明,改革后农村制度变迁的区域不一致所造就的农村经济的非农化进程、物质和人力资本积累水平等增长因素的分化是农村区域收入不均等变动的最主要根源。     

农村公共投资、居民消费与经济增长——一个博弈论的分析框架

本文在博弈论框架内讨论了公共投资与农村经济增长的关系.本文认为,政府公共投资与农村居民消费的博弈过程是推动农村经济增长的重要途径.由于博弈均衡水平和稳定性状受环境参数影响较大,公共投资与农村经济增长的相互推动作用并非是无条件的,只有那些经济系统处于发散的农村地区,公共投资与农村经济增长的相互推动作用才会显现.此外,本文还得出了统筹城乡和区域经济发展具有强化公共投资和农村经济增长相互作用的结论,并进行了相应的讨论.     

乡村公路、人口城市化和乡村包容性经济增长

俗语有曰"要想富,先修路",但建设乡村公路体系真能实现普遍富裕的目标诉求吗?文章在分工经济学理论框架下,构建了"一城vs两村"的三部门城乡分工理论模型,分析认为,乡村公路建设有利于提升整个城乡分工结构体系内的交易效率,能够将落后乡村区域纳入到一个由所属城镇主导的完整城乡分工网络体系中,此时当城市人口规模扩张需求旺盛时,构建完善的乡村公路体系,有利于促进乡村间经济增长差距收敛的同时推动乡村整体以间接效用表示的人均真实收入水平的提高,以此实现乡村包容性经济增长的目标。据此,文章构建了一个统一将农村经济增长效应和经济效益分配效应囊括在内的计量实证分析框架,通过寻找外生工具变量,并经严谨的稳健性检验,证明了上述理论命题。同时发现,在乡村公路体系建设中,如果忽视人口城市化的协调机制,其建设将导致"富庶之地越富,贫乏之地越贫"之困境,因此,为了实现包容性经济增长和共同富裕的目标诉求,必须充分重视以完善城镇产业尤其是劳动密集型产业为主要特征的人口就近城市化。此外,在对乡村公路等级的异质性分析中发现,二和四级公路建设对乡村包容性经济增长效应具有显著的促进作用,且前者强于后者,但三级公路则扩大了局部乡村...     

Land Endowment,Intersectoral Labor Mobility,and Economic Geography

The distribution of industries is studied in a general equilibrium model in which firms producing manufactured products engage in oligopolistic competition. The agricultural product is produced by land and labor and there is intersectoral labor mobility between the agricultural sector and the manufacturing sector. Results are derived analytically. When worker units are divisible, concentration of all workers in one region is not stable. The role of land in the production of the agricultural product is important in affecting the distribution of industries.     

农村劳动力转移的二元经济内生增长模型

通过引入城乡劳动力转移的二元经济结构，吸收内生增长理论的思想，本文提出一个农村劳动力转移的二元经济内生增长模型。在此基础上对中国的经济增长从二元经济结构转换的角度进行了分析。本文认为，加大对农业的投入和加快资本积累是推动农村劳动力转移、实现二元经济结构转换和经济持续增长的关键；在中国工业部门技术进步有限的情况下，通过促进农村劳动力向工业部门转移可以推动中国经济的持续增长。     

Decomposing Poverty Changes in Zambia: Growth,Inequality and Population Dynamics

Abstract: During the 1990s, the Zambian economy underwent major structural adjustments. This paper presents an application of a recently proposed poverty decomposition that attributes changes in poverty to income growth, changes in inequality and population dynamics. Our results confirm earlier findings that the existence of a severe urban bias in the economy effectively shielded large parts of the rural population from the economic slump caused by the structural adjustments. In addition, we find that the exodus from urban centres that followed the adjustments contributed significantly to the increase in national poverty. The latter finding highlights the importance of considering population movements when studying poverty, especially in situations where policy changes affect migrant labour, as was the case for the Zambian copper industry.