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.     

Explaining personality pay gaps in the UK

Using the British Household Panel Survey we estimate the effect on pay of each of the Big Five personality traits for employed men living in the UK. We add to the existing literature by estimating the role of factors such as education and occupation in explaining personality pay gaps, by allowing the personality traits to affect wage differently across occupations, education levels and other workers characteristics, and by investigating personality pay gaps for high- and low-paid workers. We find that openness to experience is the most relevant personality trait in explaining wages, followed by neuroticism, agreeableness, extroversion and conscientiousness. Openness and extroversion are rewarded while agreeableness and neuroticism are penalized, but the openness pay gap is totally explained by differences in worker characteristics, particularly education and occupation.     

On the test score gap between Roma and non‐Roma students in Hungary and its potential causes

Using unique data from Hungary, the gap in reading and mathematics test scores between Roma and non‐Roma 8th grade students is assessed and a substantial gap between them revealed. Standardized test scores as well as the fraction of students with competences considered inadequate are examined. Regardless of measurement and subject area, the bulk of the gap is explained by social differences in income, wealth and parental education. Using reduced‐form regressions, two major mediating mechanisms are identified: first, on average the home environment of Roma children is less favourable for cognitive development; second, the educational environment of the average Roma student is different from the average non‐Roma student. Comparing students with similar home environments from the same school and class, the ethnic gap in test scores is found to be insignificant. Ethnic differences in the home environment are explained by social disparity, and ethnicity seems to play no additional role in that regard. The unequal distribution of Roma students in schools and classes is found to be explained predominantly by social difference, too, with a significant residual portion, indicating the effect of ethnic segregation.     

A Proposal to Compare Consistently the Inequality Among the Poor

A poverty index should be sensitive to the number of poor people, the extent of the shortfall of the poor, and the inequality among the poor. A difficulty arises when inequality among the poor needs to be assessed. The inequality may be analyzed in terms of either incomes or gaps. Depending on what side we focus on, the inequality level comparisons may be contradictory. This paper proposes a reinterpretation of the inequality component involved in the decompositions of well‐known poverty indices. The alternative indices we introduce measure equally the income and gap inequality among the poor. The comparisons in inequality as measured by these indices are then independent of the viewpoint. An empirical application illustrates the proposal.     

对湖南省金融发展与城乡收入差距关系的协整分析

基于VAR模型,利用协整检验方法,并引进脉冲效应函数和方差分解技术,对1978～2007年的湖南省的金融发展和城乡收入差距关系进行了实证检验。结果表明:湖南金融发展与城乡收入差距之间存在一种长期的均衡关系;湖南金融发展规模和金融发展效率与城乡收入差距正相关,并由此提出了相应的政策建议。     

比较分析扩大内需措施

消费是生产的惟一目的,扩大内需是我国经济发展长期基本立足点。文章认为扩大内需首要任务是扩大居民消费,以此为出发点,分析了制约我国居民消费的瓶颈因素,并相应评析了常用扩大内需措施,发现很多措施不利于长期经济健康发展。因此,我国应改变扩大内需的方式,以更宽阔的眼光寻求扩大内需的有效措施,确保国民经济又好又快发展。     

数字技术会缩小居民收入差距吗？ ——来自政府工作报告文本分析的证据

中国共产党第二十次全国代表大会明确指出实现全体人民共同富裕是中国式现代化的本质要求,而缩小居民收入差距是共同富裕的关键。数字技术的发展是当前我国缩小居民收入差距的新机遇。本文对数字技术影响城镇内部、农村内部及城乡之间居民收入差距的机制分别进行了梳理,根据机制分析构建了相应的计量模型,利用我国2007—2020年的省际数据,使用爬虫技术从政府工作报告中收集了“数字技术”关键词,科学合理地刻画出各省份数字技术水平,实证检验数字技术对我国居民收入差距的影响机制。研究发现：第一,数字技术能够缩小城乡之间的居民收入差距,而对城镇内部与农村内部的居民收入差距没有影响,该结论呈现出一定的时间异质性和空间异质性特征,并通过了一系列稳健性检验。第二,数字技术发挥效力需要一定外部条件作为支撑,数字技术在数字基础设施更发达、人力资本更充足的时期与地区对城乡居民收入差距的缩小作用越明显。     

Autocracies and regional integration: the Eurasian case

The establishment of the Customs Union of Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan in 2010, succeeded by the Eurasian Economic Union in 2015, constituted an important discontinuity in the development of post-Soviet regionalism: while the preceding organisations remained cases of ‘ink-on-paper’ regional integration, in the case of the Customs Union the members actually implemented their commitments. This creates an important theoretical challenge: the literature (which the previous experience of Eurasian regionalism was very much in line with) conjectures that authoritarian states are unable to successfully implement an economic regional integration agreement (RIA). The aim of the article is to explore the conditions under which implementation of economic RIAs by autocracies happens. We argue that the implementation is influenced by the extent of economic, social and political ties between member states, and suggest that, unlike democratic states, which are more likely to implement a RIA where there are strong economic ties, non-democracies are more likely to do so in the case of intermediate economic dependence.     

消费对经济增长的拉动作用研究——基于城乡消费结构的比较

消费是一个国家经济增长的源动力,是公民福利增加的源泉,如何发挥消费对经济的拉动作用已成为学术界研究的热点问题。基于城乡消费结构比较的视角,就消费对经济的拉动作用以及我国城乡居民消费结构的差异进行了研究,结果显示：消费对经济增长具有积极的拉动作用;居民收入水平较低、收入水平差距较大是我国城乡居民消费对经济增长拉动作用较小的重要原因;我国城乡居民的消费结构存在差别,主要原因在于城乡收入水平的差别,持续强劲的居民消费需要以居民的收入持续增加为基础。为此,应从提高居民收入水平、减小城乡居民收入差距、建立完善的医疗保障体系、合理的消费引导等方面来改善城乡居民的消费结构,以真正发挥消费对经济增长的促进作用。     

房地产属性、收入差距与房价变动趋势

以往关于收入差距与房价之间关系的研究,较少兼顾房地产的消费与投资双重属性。文章基于双重属性的角度,首先从理论上阐述了收入差距与房价之间的动态关系。在经济发展水平较低的情况下,房地产的消费属性凸显,收入差距扩大会抑制房价上涨;随着经济的进一步发展,房地产单一属性不明显,收入差距变化对房价不存在显著影响;当经济发展水平较高时,房地产投资属性占优,收入差距扩大会促进房价上涨。进一步对理论结果进行实证研究发现,整体上我国收入差距与房价之间无显著相关关系,单一属性不明显;但就省际差异而言,在经济发展水平较高的省份,收入差距促进了房价上涨,而在经济发展水平较低的省份,收入差距则抑制了房价上涨。随着时间的变化,收入差距由抑制房价上涨转变为促进房价上涨。