An Estimation of the Intergenerational Income Elasticity of China

Abstract:

Using 1989–2006 waves of the China Health and Nutrition Survey data, we estimate the intergenerational income elasticity (IIE) of China. We find that the lower bound of the IIE is 0.491 using the son’s latest observed income and his father’s income averaged over three periods. We use the father’s number of years of education as an instrumental variable for his permanent income to derive the upper bound of the IIE, which is 0.556. We find that the intergenerational income mobility of rural China is higher than that in urban areas.     

Effective factor endowments, trade openness and income distribution in China

This paper studies the empirical relationship among factor endowment, trade openness and individual income distribution. Using panel data, we show that factor endowment characters, to some extent, explains income gap in China. First, land and Capital intensive provinces have a more equal income distribution while human capital and labor-intensive provinces have a less equal income distribution. Second, Trade openness has a significant effect on China’s income distribution; the interaction between a special endowment and openness has different effect on income distribution; we also show that FDI, economy development, unemployment and reform have considerable negative effect on income distribution. Our results are robust to various kinds of test.     

A continuous income-based grade gap decomposition on university course grades

The earnings premium for education, and higher education in particular, is well documented. This article examines the college achievement gap between students coming from positions of high and low socio-economic status. Other papers have also looked at this issue, often by employing, at least in part, an Oaxaca decomposition. Past papers artificially divided socio-economic status into binary groups of high and low, in order to employ the decomposition. Socio-economic status is innately a continuous variable. Therefore, we implement a continuous version of the Oaxaca decomposition. Higher socio-economic students are both slightly better prepared in terms of observable characteristics and have better returns to their characteristics than lower socio-economic students. Notable differences across results obtained from the binary and continuous decomposition methods are discussed.     

Can Bitcoin become money? The monetary rule problem

The growing literature on Bitcoin can be divided into two groups. One performs an economic analysis of Bitcoin focusing on its monetary characteristics. The other one takes a financial look at the price of Bitcoin. Interestingly, both of these groups have not given much more than passing comments to the problem of whether or not Bitcoin has the right monetary rule in order to become a well‐established currency. This paper argues that Bitcoin in particular, and cryptocurrencies in general, do not have a good monetary rule and that this shortcoming seriously limits its prospect of becoming widely used money.     

我国收入差距扩大的影响因素及其实证分析——以行业收入变动为视角

笔者以传统行业收入决定理论为基础,运用2003年～2008年我国19个行业的面板数据构建模型,系统地分析了2002年至今各行业收入变动的影响因素及其影响效果.结果表明,生产效率仍然是决定收入变动的重要因素;垄断因素在行业收入差距扩大中扮演最重要的角色;人力资本水平对收入变动的作用有待于进一步提升.笔者还阐述了加入"世贸"组织后垄断行业暴利、高教扩招等社会现实问题对行业收入变动的影响.     

Effects of pro-growth policies on employment: evidence of regional disparities

The main objective of our research is to study the direct impact of pro-growth economic policies on employment creation globally and regionally, as evidence has countered policy-makers’ expectation that output growth leads automatically to job creation. We innovate by using the ratio of employment to the population above 25 years as dependent variable instead of the customary employment elasticity. We apply generalized methods of moments’ econometrics on dynamic panel data models and find that growth stimulates employment creation on average across 76 countries. The policies promoting private sector credit, investments, openness, services, education spending, tertiary enrollment, and a fixed exchange rate are the ones that create employment. Larger government size undermines job creation, while policies promoting FDI and industrial development fail to stimulate employment. However, we establish that the effect of pro-growth policies on employment varies significantly across regions, with evidence of weaker links between economic policies and employment in Sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East.     

From necessities to imaginary worlds: Structural change,product quality and economic development

In this paper we explore how innovation and structural change affected economic development in the long run, by which we mean a period such as the one between the industrial revolution and the present. We separate the period since the industrial revolution into two sub periods, which we call ‘necessities’ and ‘imaginary worlds’ and focus on three trajectories, increasing productive efficiency, increasing output variety, and increasing output quality and differentiation. In the paper we show how a combination of the three trajectories gave rise to the transition between ‘necessities’ and ‘imaginary worlds’ and propose a mechanism of economic development which could have given rise to the type of economic system which we can observe today. To create growing output quality and differentiation higher competencies were required. These higher competencies required higher levels of education and demanded higher wages, which contributed to raise consumers' purchasing power. These phenomena, combined with the income effect of the creation of new sectors, generated the disposable income with which consumers could purchase the new, higher quality, non necessities, goods and services generated by innovation. In the paper we study the impact of several model parameters on the stability of the virtuous circle previously described.     

Investigating the Impact of Income on Savings Using a Chinese Household Level Dataset

This article uses the China Household Financial Survey (CHFS) to examine the savings behavior of Chinese Households. Using a standard cross-sectional empirical approach to modeling permanent and transitory income, we show that one way of explaining the relative high savings rate in China is by recognizing that in fast growing economies, individuals may have higher transitory income from which they save a large proportion. The estimation also contains a range of household specific variables which can be used to understand the impact of socio-economic characteristics such as urban vs rural dwelling, age, and the educational level.     

"两税"并轨对我国引进外国直接投资的影响

由于目前我国来自香港、台湾地区的直接投资以及一些国际避税地的外国直接投资占绝大多数,已将近总额的60%,因此,提高外资企业所得税率很可能会导致大量外资流向周边低税国家,从而对我国引进外资的总量产生较大影响。所以我们对税收优惠的调整在时间上和优惠方式的取舍上,都应有一个平稳的过渡,使我国对外开放和引进外资的政策保持延续性。