Political aspects of household finance: debt,wage bargaining,and macroeconomic (in)stability

The recent literature has shown that income inequality is one of the main causes of borrowing and debt accumulation by working households. This article explores the possibility that household indebtedness is an important cause of rising income inequality. If workers experience rising debt burdens, their cost of job loss may rise if they need labor-market income to continue borrowing and servicing existing debt. This, in turn, will reduce their bargaining power and increase income inequality, inducing workers to borrow more to maintain consumption standards, and so creating a vicious circle of rising inequality, job insecurity, and indebtedness. We believe that these dynamics may have contributed to observed simultaneous increases in income inequality and household debt prior to the recent financial crisis. To explore the two-way interaction between inequality and debt, we develop an employment rent framework that explicitly considers the impact of workers’ indebtedness on their perceived cost of job loss. This is embedded in a neo-Kaleckian macro model in which inequality spurs debt accumulation that contributes to household consumption spending and hence demand formation. Our analysis suggests that (a) workers’ borrowing behavior plays a crucial role in understanding the character of demand and growth regimes; (b) debt and workers’ borrowing behavior play an important role in the labor market by influencing workers’ bargaining power; and (c) through such channels, workers’ borrowing behavior can be a decisive factor in the determination of macroeconomic (in)stability.     

The Image of Australia. Perceptions of the Australian Economy from the Eighteenth to the Twentieth Century

Recent institutionalist and post-Keynesian work on business cycles continues with the traditional institutionalist supposition that financial bubbles drive cycles; however there has been a growing sense in the literature that household consumption, not business investment, has become the key variable. This paper will show how this is a change from historical institutional theory and it will then discuss how this change pushes income distribution toward a more central role in explaining current cycle dynamics. Specifically, this paper argues that much of the economic growth over the last two decades can be attributed to the top two quintiles borrowing more and the current slow growth can be attributed to high quintile households increasing their consumption while middle income households are continuing to deleverage.     

地方政府支出规模与结构的居民收入分配效应及制度根源

本文以中国居民营养和健康调查数据为基础,考察了地方政府支出规模与结构的居民收入分配效应及其制度根源。研究表明,地方政府支出规模与结构总体上加剧了我国省份居民收入分配状况的恶化,其中经济性支出比重增加带来的不利影响更为突出,社会支出比重的影响并不显著。财政分权体制对地方政府支出规模与结构的居民收入分配效应具有重要影响:支出分权总体上加剧了地方政府支出规模与结构对省份居民收入分配的不利影响,收入分权则有助于遏制地方政府支出规模对城镇居民收入差距以及经济性支出比重对城乡收入差距的负面效应,但也强化了社会性支出比重对居民收入分配的不利影响。     

Fiscal policy,government debt,and economic growth in the Kaleckian model of growth and distribution

This article presents the Kaleckian model of growth and distribution that sets a budget deficit ratio as an indicator of fiscal policy and examines the short- and long-run effects of an increase in budget deficits and a rise in income tax rates on the economy. The key short-run outcomes are as follows. First, expanded budget deficits have a positive effect on the rate of capacity utilization. Second, the tax rate for wage income does not affect the rate of capacity utilization, whereas the tax rate for capital income has a favorable impact on it. This result implies that raising the tax rate for capital income can be an important policy instrument for stimulating the economy. Third, we find that the economy exhibits a wage-led aggregate demand in the short run. The main long-run results are as follows. First, the effect of expanded budget deficits on the growth rate is ambiguous, since a higher debt burden negatively influences the rate of capacity utilization and hence economic growth, despite the increase in demand caused by government borrowing. A higher budget deficit ratio thus raises the growth rate only if a certain condition is satisfied. Second, the tax rate for capital income has a positive impact on the growth rate. Third, the economy shows a wage-led growth in the long run.     

论公平经济增长

目前,中国的基尼系数已经达到0.48,超过了收入差距过大的警戒线.居民收入差距过大,可从三个方面影响中国经济的增长:(1)居民收入差距过大通过减少消费需求来减少有效需求;(2)居民收入差距过大导致人们教育投入的不平衡影响经济发展的动力;(3)居民收入差距过大容易导致社会不稳定,影响经济发展的外部环境.我们应该采取相应对策,实现公平经济增长.     

转型社会中财政对收入分配的影响——基于我国不同发展阶段的理论实证

财政对收入分配的影响不仅限于再分配更在于初次分配环节。文章借助数理模型分析了我国不同阶段财政对收入分配的作用机制,研究表明:(1)财政制度安排影响要素分配和分配基本格局。初次分配格局确定后,再分配调节作用有限。长期中,财政将通过居民要素结构影响收入分配;(2)我国不同阶段的分配状况是财政体制和发展战略目标的必然结果;(3)构建和谐社会条件下,财政支出结构将有利于人力资本积累、提高收入水平、缩小收入差距。     

Relative State Autonomy and National Economic Planning

Economic security is the protection from hardship causing economic losses. Such losses can occur due to unemployment, medical emergencies, and other unforeseen events. To measure how well prepared families are for these events, we calculate a series of middle class security indicators, specifically the share of families who have enough financial wealth to weather an unemployment spell, those who can cover a medical emergency, those can handle both unemployment and a medical emergency and those who can sustain an emergency that requires three months of income. Based on data from the Federal Reserve, the Bureau of Labor Statistics, and the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, we find that economic security steadily improved in the 1990s, but sharply declined after 2000. Within 2-3 years, all gains of the 1990s were erased due to a debt boom fuelled by weak income growth and sharp price increases.     

Endogenous Fertility, Income Distribution, and Growth

This article analyzes the interaction between growth and fertility via income distribution in a model in which fertility decisions are motivated by old-age support. It provides an explanation of the demographic transition of an economy from a stage of increasing fertility and low growth to a stage of low fertility, high human capital investments, and high growth.     

新卡莱茨基学派对当代资本主义金融危机的研究

2008年的金融危机在对世界经济造成极大破坏的同时,也引发了经济学界的广泛思考.新卡莱茨基学派以收入分配为起点,对金融主导的资本主义体制的矛盾性和脆弱性进行了系统性分析,提出了一套涵盖危机成因、传导机制和对策等方面的完整的理论体系.新卡莱茨基学派认为,20世纪80年代以来金融主导的资本主义体制进一步激化了资本主义生产社...     

Income inequality and economic growth—the Kuznets curve revisited

In a neoclassical growth framework with a typical political-economy mechanism, this paper reexamines the relationship between the income inequality and economic growth by introducing government spending into the production function and the utility function. It demonstrates that Kuznets’ famous inverted-U shape relationship between inequality and economic growth will hold—the growth rate will be first increasing with the income inequality before the growth rate decreases with inequality. __________ Translated from The Journal of World Economy (世界经济), 2005,(5) (in Chinese)     

农民收入分配对农村经济增长作用分析

改革开放20年的实践表明，农民收入分配与农村经济增长之问是互相影响的。即在经济发展早期，收入分配不均等对经济增长具有促进作用；当经济发展进入后期，收入分配不均等就会对经济增长产生抑制作用，此时收入分配不均等的缩小可以促进经济增长。     

我国垄断行业收入与经济增长关系的实证研究——基于面板协整理论

基于1990—2008年我国垄断行业收入的面板数据,通过面板协整、Engle-Granger检验以及运用误差修正模型对我国垄断行业的收入水平与经济增长的长期关系进行分析。研究结果显示:与能源、交通相关的垄断行业的收入与经济增长之间存在长期稳定的协整关系;与能源相关的垄断行业的收入对经济增长具有正向影响,而与交通相关的垄断行业的收入对经济增长的影响不太显著;金融保险业和房地产业的收入与经济增长之间并不存在长期稳定的面板协整关系。     

Income growth,redistribution, and subjective well-being in Taiwan – a simulation study

This study simulates different income growth and income distribution scenarios in Taiwan in 2001, and examines how social happiness and people's happiness at different income levels change. Without taking downward comparison into consideration, the simulation supports income redistribution in favour of the poor. When the downward comparison is taken into consideration, the simulation does not support any kind of income redistribution. The present study investigates the relationship between income inequality and subjective well-being, and shows that a change in the Gini index can be interpreted in terms of a shift in revealed subjective well-being.     

收入分配视角下经济增长与环境质量的关系

利用2003—2010年中国省级面板数据,将城乡收入差距的基尼系数作为衡量收入差距的指标,并将该指标作为主要的解释变量引入线性计量模型,使用主成分分析方法设计反映环境质量的综合指标,探讨了中国经济增长与环境质量之间的关系。研究结果显示:收入分配不公并不必然带来环境质量恶化,城乡收入差距与环境质量之间存在显著的负向关系;随着人均产出的上升,环境质量逐渐得到改善,"倒U型"的环境库兹涅茨曲线并不存在;地方政府对环境保护的重视程度会显著影响一个地区的环境质量。     

经济增长、收入分配的减贫效应探析——以新疆为例

运用FGT贫困指数,以新疆为例,基于Lorenz曲线对农村贫困变动进行测算。结果表明,经济增长具有明显的减贫作用,而收入分配不平等加剧则部分地抵消了经济增长的减贫作用。     

Corporate Power and the Scope of Economic Analysis

This paper examines how consumer debt impacts middle-class households. Interest payments on this debt reduce spendable income and household living standards. We argue that it is necessary to account for interest payments on consumer debt when measuring income inequality and the size of the middle class, and then estimate the impact of doing this using the Survey of Consumer Finances datasets since the 1980s. We find that both greater income inequality and rising interest payments on past debt are squeezing the middle class, with interest becoming more important in the 2000s. We conclude with some policy proposals to aid middle-class households.     

经济增长、收入分配对农村贫困变动的影响

文章利用了基于Lorenz曲线进行贫困测度及其分解的方法,实证研究了1985～2003年中国农村的贫困变动,以及经济增长和收入分配对贫困变动的影响.结果表明,经济增长使农村居民收入增加,大幅度减少了贫困,但农村居民的收入差距逐渐拉大,收入不平等加剧部分地抵消了经济增长的减贫成效.