Intergenerational Income Persistence in Urban China

Intergenerational income elasticities are estimated using samples for urban China (covering many cities) for the years 1995 and 2002 and compared with results from other studies. We find that the income relation between the pairs—sons and fathers, sons and mothers, and daughters and mothers—are in 2002 all similar in magnitude. In contrast the relation between daughters' and fathers' income is weaker. The income relationship between offspring and mothers was weaker in 1995 than in 2002. Our preferred estimates of income persistence for the son/father pairs of 0.47 for 1995 and 0.53 for 2002 are higher than those which have been reported in the literature for several high‐income countries with large welfare states. The strength of the income link between sons and fathers in urban China appears to be not very different from what has been reported for countries such as Brazil, Chile, and the U.S.     

The Sins of the Fathers: Intergenerational Income Mobility in China

This paper aims to obtain an accurate estimate of China's intergenerational income mobility and to present evidence on its distributional pattern. Using panel data from the China Health and Nutrition Survey (CHNS) over the period 1989–2009, I find that China is less mobile than most developed countries. Then, I employ five different approaches to investigate the distributional pattern of China's intergenerational mobility across income levels. The results suggest that poor families have relatively high mobility, indicating opportunities for the poor children to escape poverty. Finally, I show that while wealthy fathers are likely to pass on their favorable economic status to their sons, rich sons come from a very wide range of family economic backgrounds.     

Intergenerational transmission of education in China: New evidence from the Chinese Cultural Revolution

This paper estimates the effect of parental education on children's education by using instruments generated by the Chinese Cultural Revolution, and further explores the mechanisms of this causal relationship. Several important findings stand out from our empirical analyses. We find a larger intergenerational persistence in education for higher level in urban areas but for a lower level of education in rural areas. The main results from instrumental variable estimation show that the nurture effect is larger and more significant for fathers than for mothers. A deeper investigation of the mechanism behind this nurture effect informs us that a father's education passes on to his children's education partly through the income channel. Another notable finding is that even after controlling for fathers’ income, parental education still has a significantly positive effect on children's education through the nurture effect. This indicates that beyond the income channel, there may exist other channels such as better home environment, which deserve to be explored in future research.     

浅析自然资源利用中的代际外部性问题

自然资源开发利用中存在外部性问题, 本文在传统外部性理论的基础上, 提出了代际外部性的概念, 并对其种类、表现、产生原因、特点等进行了阐述。     

Intergenerational transfers and the social discount rate

This paper investigates the relationship between intergenerational asset transfers and the choice of the discount rate for use in cost-benefit analysis in a model of a competitive overlapping generations economy constrained by a socially managed exhaustible resource. Provided that there are no distortions in capital markets and that all agents hold perfect foresight, cost-benefit techniques will result in a Pareto efficient resource allocation if the discount rate is set equal to the market rate of interest. But since the path of the interest rate depends on the level of intergenerational transfers, cost-benefit techniques do not ensure a socially desirable distribution of welfare between generations; a social optimum will result only if intergenerational transfers are properly chosen and enforced. Decentralized private altruism may result in intergenerational transfers that both present and future individuals would agree are too small if members of the present generation attach positive weight to the general welfare of future generations, not simply their personal descendants. In a world where intergenerational transfers are non-optimal, second-best policy-making may imply a constrained optimum that is inefficient. Together, these findings suggest that cost-benefit analysis is at best a partial criterion to policy formulation that should be used only in conjunction with ethical principles that define the proper distribution of welfare between present and future generations.     

我国新型农村养老保险对财政体系可持续性的影响研究——基于代际核算方法的模拟分析

文章利用Auerbach等(1991)提出的代际核算方法,基于符合国情的参数假设,分析了各种"新农保"方案对财政体系可持续性的影响。模拟结果表明,按照目前方案建立"新农保"体系并不会给政府增加太多负担,"新农保"覆盖面扩大的快慢对财政体系的负担基本也没有影响。由于个人账户中积累的资金目前按照一年期定期存款计息,政府承担的个人账户长寿风险非常有限。"新农保"体系带给政府的主要财政负担来自全额负担基础养老金,如果政府把全国的基础养老金都提高至上海市每月135元的水平,给政府增加的负担不会过多。因此,政府可以加快"新农保"覆盖面扩大的速度,并在现有的财力水平下把全国农村的基础养老金都提高至上海市的水平,但是提高幅度不宜进一步加大。     

Tuition Fees for Higher Education and Intergenerational Mobility in China

This paper studies the impact of an increase in higher education tuition on intergenerational mobility in China. We develop a theoretical model for the parental decision about the investment on education of children to illustrate the impact from the perspective of borrowing constraint. We consider the Chinese college tuition and subsidy reform around 1986 as a quasi-natural experiment for identifying the policy effect of the reform on intergenerational educational mobility by using the data from the census of 2000 and the China Family Panel Studies (CFPS). We find that an increase in the education burden induced by the reform of college tuition has reduced intergenerational educational mobility, and it is more noticeable in regions with a relatively higher increment in the tuition fee. Our results are robust with consideration of the co-residence bias, government investment in elementary education, and the higher education expansion.     

中国贫困代际传递及动态趋势实证研究

文章运用CHNS调查数据,对城乡居民家庭贫困代际传递及动态趋势进行了研究。静态分析表明:农村贫困代际传递机会要明显大于城市,且城乡差距明显;个体行业差异显著影响个体贫困发生机会,但父辈行业差异对子代贫困发生机会的代际影响不明显,健康、教育降低子代贫困作用巨大,同等条件下女性贫困发生机会要高于男性,贫困发生机会与年龄呈"U"关系。动态分析表明:虽然中国整体面的贫困水平逐年下降,但贫困代际传递机会基本呈上升趋势;农村贫困代际传递机会大于城市;城乡子代贫困机会差距自20世纪90年代以来在拉大。     

代际旅游的内涵界定及表现形式

基于代际关系考虑的代际旅游是在我国家庭代际关系变迁和消费观念转变的背景下产生的,其存在具有绝对性,范围有其针对性,表现形式有亲子游、孝敬父母游、隔代游和大家庭旅游。     

地方环境规制中的代际公平问题研究

代际公平问题涉及当代人与后代人之间的福利和资源分配问题,是衡量可持续发展的标准之一。在地方层面,由于代际市场的缺失以及代内决策者的有限理性,环境规制很难避免代际外部性和代际利益冲突的产生。结合我国转轨时期的现实背景,对地方环境规制中的代际公平问题进行分析,并提出改革思路和政策建议。     

Intergenerational Transfer Schemes as Incomplete Social Contracts

Intergenerational transfers are often viewed as emerging from social contracts that specify the terms of trade for some pattern of exchange among generations. Here it is argued that such a view should incorporate contractual incompleteness and the impossibility to ex ante rule out the renegotiation of the social contract. In the present setting, such issues preclude that social contracts implement first-best decisions. Yet, a situation with an incomplete and renegotiable social contract is superior to various other scenarios, including the no-contract solution.     

Environmental Abatement and Intergenerational Distribution

This paper employs an overlapping-generations model to explore the impactof public abatement on private investment and the intergenerationaldistribution of welfare. Whereas public abatement benefits the oldestgenerations in terms of non-environmental welfare, future generations gainmost in terms of environment welfare. The overall benefits tend to besmallest for generations born at the time of the unanticipated policy shock.Public debt policy, however, can be employed to ensure that welfare gainsare distributed more equally across the various generations. Such a policyimplies that natural capital crowds-out man-made capital.     

中国文化背景下消费行为代际影响的动力机制:基于社会心理学视角

本文以社会心理学的视角研究中国城市家庭消费行为的双向代际影响问题,对上海市的10对母女居民进行了深度访谈,采用三级编码的方法对文本进行分析整理。研究结果揭示了代际影响动力机制的三方面内容:代际影响行为的动机特征,代际间相互作用的模式,代际影响关系的发展和转变。通过这三方面的研究构建了一个动态的、完整的、具有中国特色的消费行为代际影响模式,从理论上弥补了子女成人后消费行为代际影响方面的研究不足。这对于在中国开展本土化的家庭营销具有重要的实践指引意义。     

Bequests, Inter Vivos Transfers, and Wealth Distribution

This paper constructs a heterogeneous agent overlapping generations model with bequests and inter vivos transfers. In the model, households in the same family line behave strategically to determine their consumption, working hours, gifts, and savings. Calibrating the model to the U.S. economy, the paper measures time preference and parental altruism consistent with the economy's capital-output ratio and the size of intergenerational transfers. The model with intergenerational transfers better explains, although not fully, the wealth distribution of the United States. The paper also analyzes the effects of government policy changes on wealth accumulation, distribution, and social welfare. Journal of Economic Literature Classification Numbers: D31, D64, D91, H31.     

Uncertain Climate Change in an Intergenerational Planning Model

A three-generation planning model incorporating uncertain climate change is developed. Each generation features a production activity based on capital and an exhaustible resource. An irreversible climate change may occur in period two or three, reducing the productivity for this and the remaining generation. The model is solved by stochastic dynamic programming. If the climate impact and climate change probability is constant, the optimal period one (and two) resource extraction is larger than for the reference case of climate stability. If, however, climate impact and climate change probability increases with increased aggregate resource use, this result is reversed.     

Wealth Distribution and Optimal Inheritance Taxation in Life-cycle Economies with Intergenerational Transfers

Intergenerational transfers are introduced into a general equilibrium life-cycle model in order to explain observed levels of wealth heterogeneity. In our overlapping generations model, heterogenous agents face uncertain lifetime and leave both accidental and voluntary bequests to their children. Furthermore, agents face stochastic employment opportunities. The model is calibrated with regard to the characteristics of the US economy. Our results indicate that bequests only account for a small proportion of observed wealth heterogeneity. The introduction of an inheritance tax increases both welfare, as measured by the average lifetime utility of a newborn, and equality of the wealth distribution.
JEL classification : D 31; D 91; H 21; C 68; E 21     

The Transfer Problem and Intergenerational Allocation in an Overlapping Generations Model

We investigate the transfer problem between two countries in the steady state in a one-sector overlapping generations model and explain how transfers should be shared between the young and old generations of the donor country and allocated across the generations of the recipient country. Except at the golden rule of capital accumulation, the ratios of the burden and distribution of transfers between the young and old generations affect welfare. We obtain the following results. First, the sharing of the transfer burden in the donor country depends on the relative size of two effects, namely, a negative direct effect and a positive indirect effect. If the former exceeds the latter, it is preferable for the donor country to allocate all of the transfer burden to the old generation and vice versa. Second, from the viewpoint of welfare maximization, it is preferable for the recipient country to distribute all of the transfers to the young generation. In contrast to the existing literature, these results suggest that the setting whereby the young generation of the donor country defrays all transfer costs may not be justifiable from the viewpoint of donor welfare maximization.     

Double Dividend with Involuntary Unemployment: Efficiency and Intergenerational Equity

This paper analyzes the double dividend and distributional issues within an overlapping generations model framework with involuntary unemployment. We characterize the necessary conditions needed to obtain a double dividend, when the revenue of the environmental tax is recycled by a variation of the labor tax rate. We show that an employment dividend may occur without any efficiency dividend and that the young generation is not always harmed by the fiscal reform, even without any intergenerational transfers. Therefore, three dividends (environmental, efficiency and intergenerational equity) can occur simultaneously.     

子女教育、代际支持与家庭贫困的变动

子女教育是影响农村家庭贫困变动的一个重要因素。通过对14省区609户农村家庭调查结果的分析,子女接受教育程度越高,自身一代家庭摆脱贫困的比例越高,并且能传承下代家庭使其免受贫困;家庭贫困代际变动的断裂点为15年(大专教育)。     

The Determinants of Risk Aversion: The Role of Intergenerational Transmission

This article studies the relationship between risk attitudes and individual characteristics focusing on the intergenerational transmission of risk preferences. We use a dataset of a sample of Italian students which allows us to build different measures of risk aversion based, respectively, on a survey asking students about their willingness to invest in a risky asset and about their preferences for job security and on the results of an entry test using explicit penalty points in the case of incorrect answers. In line with the findings highlighted by the existing literature, we find that women are more risk averse than men, more patient subjects are more risk averse, while high‐ability students are less risk averse. As far as intergenerational transmission of preferences is concerned, it emerges that students whose fathers are entrepreneurs have a higher propensity to take risks, while students whose fathers are employed in the public sector are more risk averse. Only fathers matter with regards to their children's risk attitudes. These results are robust to different measures of risk aversion and to different specifications of our model.