地方政府财政支出结构与规模对收入分配及经济增长的影响

经济增长实际上是物质和人力资本价值实现的过程。本文采用26个省级面板的数据,探讨地方政府支出结构与规模对收入分配的影响机制,进而对地区经济增长的影响。地方政府非生产性支出对收入分配有正面影响,缩小收入分配差距。地方政府生产性支出对收入分配有负面影响,会扩大地方城乡居民收入差距。生产性支出对经济增长有显著的促进作用,非生产性支出对经济增长有一定遏制作用。另外,从三重维度上衡量,居民收入、城镇居民收入以及农村居民收入差距扩大对经济增长具有负向作用。因此,改革政府支出结构,调节政府支出规模,对我国城乡居民收入差距和经济推进具有重要作用。     

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。     

论1978年以来中国国民收入分配格局的演变、现状与调整对策

1978年以来中国国民收入分配格局发生了巨大变化,国民收入分配从向居民倾斜逐步演变成向政府倾斜。与其他国家相比,中国政府收入和企业收入比重偏高而居民收入比重偏低。就各经济主体内部收入分配结构而言,政府收入中的中央财政收入比重低、生产税比重较高而收入税比重较低、政府社会保险福利支出比重也较低,企业收入差距大、企业间利润分配不均,劳动者报酬和居民财产收入比重均较低且居民收入差距扩大。因此,应该适当调整中国国民收入分配格局,提高居民收入比重,并将国民收入分配格局的调整与各经济主体内部收入分配结构的调节有机结合。     

从库兹涅茨收入分配说看居民收入差距

库兹涅茨收入分配假说是针对发展中国家的收入分配问题提出的。认为发展中国家在早期经济增长过程中居民收入分配的拉犬是必然的．而这种差距会随着国民经济的持续发展而自动弥合。这一假说在逻辑上有一定的合理性．但我国居民收入分配的特殊情况却对这一假说提出了现实的挑战．解决目前我国居民收入差距过大的问题迫切要求我国政府的有效作为。     

我国经济增长中的两个“为什么”

按照经济增长理论,居民收入增长应与经济增长同步,但我国却出现了居民收入增长与经济增长不同步现象;按照经济学原理,再分配过程可有效调节收入差距,但我国再分配过程却不能有效调节收入分配差距。这是我国经济增长中出现的两种现象。为什么会有这两种现象,本文对此作了分析,并提出相关的政策建议。     

中国收入再分配规模国际比较分析——与美国、日本、墨西哥三国比较

文章以美国、日本和墨西哥作为参照,从政府的再分配政策对收入分配影响的角度,比较分析中国再分配规模状况。通过计算四个国家从2004—2010年收入税、社会缴费、社会福利和其它经常性转移四个再分配项目的规模,并比较分析得出结论:中国再分配总体规模远低于美国、日本,略高于墨西哥,说明中国再分配规模与发达国家有很大差距,但基本符合中国当前经济发展水平;从发展变化的趋势看,政府转移性收入规模增长幅度大于转移性支出规模增长幅度,尤其是社会缴费规模增长过快,显示出中国福利性支出的发展滞后于社会经济和政府转移性收入的发展,这种现状和趋势削弱了再分配的调节功能,不利于缩小居民收入分配差距。     

探求源自生产领域的收入分配差距及其对策

目前,我国居民收入分配差距愈加明显,势必对经济增长产生负效应,阻碍经济的发展,因此研究收入分配差距的来源对于探寻拉动经济增长的途径具有重大现实意义。本文通过探求源自生产领域的收入分配差距表明政府在干涉生产领域进而导致收入分配差距的过程中扮演了关键的角色。从而对政府在市场经济中的角色与职能给予定位,并给出缩小收入分配差距的政策建议。     

中国经济增长与收入分配

改革开放以来,国民经济持续快速增长,同时也引起了利益分配机制的改变。其结果,中国居民收入分配格局和收入差距出现了显著性变化。国民经济高速增长对收入分配的影响在转型期已初还端倪,作为经济增长的结果之一,同时也将对经济增长卢生影响。一、经济转型时期的收人分配变化趋势在经济转型时期居民收入分配差距基本上表现为一种不断扩大的趋势。这种收入差距的扩大主要存在于城镇内部,农村内部和城乡居民之间。在这里,我们拟对转型期收入分配变化的一些主要方面作一考察。！、城乡居民收入差距继技扩大。从有关资料统计可以看出,城…     

我国收入差距扩大的深层原因及治理对策

虽然收入差距扩大是工业化和经济转轨阶段的普遍现象,但我国居民收入从世界上最平均的国家,变成世界上差距最大的国家只用了二十几年的时间,为国际所罕见.而收入差距过大,不仅会影响到经济增长,还会加剧经济秩序和社会秩序的混乱,甚至会威胁到社会的安定.因此,研究收入差距问题和如何缩小收入差距便成为一项重要课题,也是当前我国政府急需解决的紧迫问题.本文从我国居民收入差距基本现状入手,剖析我国收入分配差距扩大的深层原因、并进一步探寻解决收入分配差距的对策.     

如何看待目前的居民收入差距——关于收入分配问题的思考

随着经济的发展，我国居民收入差距呈不断扩大之势，这其中有合理的一面，也有不合理的一面。实际上，目前我国居民收入差距中最主要的问题是城乡差距，这应是未来解决收入差距问题的重点。在初次分配中，应以效率为先，在再分配中，应强调公平，让市场和政府发挥各自的功效，理顺收入分配体制。90年代末期，由于经济增长速度相对放缓，下岗人员增多，就业压力十分突出，收入差距就成为大家关主的热点问题和敏感话题。那么，居民收入差距究竟有多大？如何看待目前的收入差距问题?收入差距的存在和扩大有何影响，应采取怎样的对策？本文就此发表一点个人看法。     

Meeting the Social Policy Challenges Facing Korea

Korea faces the fastest population aging among Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development countries and increasing levels of income inequality and relative poverty. While economic growth will help address these challenges, growth alone is not sufficient, making it necessary to introduce policies to promote social cohesion. First, the National Pension Scheme and the National Health Insurance need to be improved. Second, Korea should develop well‐targeted social programs and expand the earned income tax credit. Third, it is important to reduce labor market dualism, a major cause of inequality due to the large wage gap between regular and non‐regular workers. Fourth, education reform is needed to lower the financial burden of tertiary education, reduce the heavy reliance on hagwon and increase spending on preprimary education. At the same time, it is essential to maintain a sound fiscal position by increasing tax revenues, primarily through indirect taxes and environmental taxes, to cover rising social spending.     

Discretionary fiscal policy and economic activity in Greece

This paper investigates the effects of discretionary fiscal policy changes on economic activity and its subcomponents in Greece in the period 2000–2011. Changes in government spending and net taxes have Keynesian effects. An increase in government consumption has the most pronounced positive effects on output growth, private consumption and non-residential investment, while it reduces residential investment. Cuts in the public investment programme crowd in private investment, but are associated negatively with the net exports ratio. Both indirect and direct tax hikes lower private consumption, private investment and output growth. However, higher direct taxes by lowering disposable income they reduce import demand, thus, improving the trade balance.     

Growth, income distribution, and fiscal policy volatility

The relationship between income distribution and economic growth has long been an important economic research subject. Despite substantial evidence on the negative impact on long-term growth of inequality in the literature, however, there is not much consensus on the specific channels through which inequality affects growth. The empirical validity of two most prominent political economy channels - redistributive fiscal spending and taxes, and sociopolitical instability - has recently been challenged. We advance a new political economy channel for the negative link between inequality and growth, a fiscal policy volatility channel, and present strong supporting econometric evidence in a large sample of countries over the period of 1960-2000. Our finding also sheds light on another commonly observed negative relation between macroeconomic volatility and growth. We carefully address the robustness of the results in terms of data, estimation methods, outlier problem, and endogeneity problem that often plague the standard OLS (ordinary least squares) regression.     

Deficits for the Rich: Inequality and Instability

Abstract

Deficit spending has long been understood as a stabilizing counter-cyclical force. The thesis presented herein is that over recent decades, the cumulative deficits of government and non-corporate entities have expanded the inequality of wealth and income, which, over the long haul, contributes to slow growth and potential instability. The thesis builds on the Kaleckian-Minsky insight that deficits create gross profits in excess of new investment expenditures (free cash). Since the 1980s, this free cash has been spilled in the stock market through mergers, dividends and stock buybacks—worsening inequality. As the upper classes have a larger range of discretionary spending options, this expanded inequality has made for more spending volatility and speculative endeavors. The authors call for expanded taxes on the rich to claim the deficit-generated free cash. Such taxes would be in the service of more stability and equity.     

Schumpeterian Growth with Productive Public Spending and Distortionary Taxation

Schumpeterian growth theory eliminates the scale effect by positing a process of development of new product lines that fragments the aggregate market in submarkets whose size does not increase with population or the size of the workforce. This entails the sterilization of the growth effects of selected fiscal variables. This insight is applied to shed new light on the role of distortionary taxes on consumption, household labor and assets income, corporate income, and of productive public spending. The framework allows the identification of which of these fiscal variables have permanent (steady‐state) growth effects, and which ones have only transitory effects. It also allows the transitional dynamics to be solved analytically and thus the analysis of the welfare effects of revenue‐neutral changes in tax structure. It is found that replacing taxes that distort labor supply with taxes that distort saving/investment choices raises welfare, and the intuition behind this surprising result is discussed.     

公共支出结构对收入不均等影响研究——基于公共服务均等化视角分析

收入不均等影响到社会公平与经济发展,而收入公平分配是政府的主要责任,也是政府公共支出的依据之一.影响收入分配不均等的因素有很多,其中由于政府相应责任缺位,公共支出结构偏向,使得公共支出中基本公共服务支出不足是其主要原因.本文实证分析得出公共支出总量与结构严重影响基本公共服务供给,进而影响着收入不均等的水平,成为社会公平和稳定的重要因素.政府应从制度上进行公共支出改革,规范督促地方政府优化公共支出结构,不断提高对民生支出的主动性,逐步缩小基本公共服务的差距,缩小收入不均等的水平.     

Income Distribution and Redistribution

Abstract:

It seems that some observable structural trends in recent decades such as globalization, skills-biased technological advances and level of unionization all over the world have been affected by income distribution, in addition to other economic variables. The latest trends in the 2000s exhibited a widening gap between the rich and the poor not only in some of the already high inequality countries, but also in traditionally low inequality countries. In order to mitigate inequality, many countries have followed redistribution policies (taxes and transfers). In this article, we will mainly focus on the effects of redistribution policies consisting of income taxes and social transfers on income inequality using the micro data in Turkey. Additionally, since financial crises have been becoming more important with increasing frequency of crises all over the world, we also search for the effects of crises on inequality and the degree of mitigation of redistributive policies, especially during the Global Recession.     

Fiscal multipliers in good times and bad times

This paper estimates the magnitudes of government spending and tax multipliers within a regime-switching framework for the U.S. economy during the period 1949:1–2006:4. Our results show that the magnitudes of spending multipliers are larger during periods of low economic activity, while the magnitudes of tax multipliers are larger during periods of high economic activity. We also show that the magnitudes of fiscal multipliers got smaller for episodes of low growth, while they got larger for episodes of high growth in the post 1980 period. Analyzing the effects of government spending and taxes on consumption and investment spending indicates that the magnitude of the effects of fiscal shocks on consumption and investment is very small.     

中国的税收结构、经济增长与收入分配

本文通过实证分析,说明在中国现阶段的经济制度和税收结构下,流转税类、所得税类、资源税类和财产税类份额的增加会扩大资本所有者和劳动所有者市场收入的分配差距,而特定目的税类和行为税类份额的增加则会缩小资本要素与劳动要素的收入分配差距。同时,所得税类、资源税类和行为税类份额的增加会提高经济的总体规模,而财产税类和特定目的税类份额的增加则会降低经济的总体规模。这说明在现阶段的中国经济中,有必要对所得税类和财产税类进行结构和职能两方面改革,使这两种税能够体现社会公平的税收职能。单纯地从税收结构的数量调整上讲,目前应提高所得税类的税收份额,并降低财产税类(即房地产税)的税收份额。     

How Does Fiscal Consolidation Impact on Income Inequality?

In this paper, we assess the impact of fiscal consolidation on income inequality. Using a panel of 18 industrialized countries from 1978 to 2009, we find that income inequality significantly rises during periods of fiscal consolidation. In addition, while fiscal policy that is driven by spending cuts seems to be detrimental for income distribution, tax hikes seem to have an equalizing effect. We also show that the size of the fiscal consolidation program (in percentage of GDP) has an impact on income inequality. In particular, when consolidation plans represent a small share of GDP, the income gap widens, suggesting that the burden associated with the effort affects disproportionately households at the bottom of the income distribution. Considering the linkages between banking crises and fiscal consolidation, we find that the effect on the income gap is amplified when fiscal adjustments take place after the resolution of such financial turmoil. Similarly, fiscal consolidation programs combined with inflation are likely to increase inequality and the effects of fiscal adjustments on inequality are amplified during periods of relatively low growth. Our results also provide support for a non‐linear relationship between inequality and income and corroborate the idea that trade can promote a more equal distribution of income.