寒门难出贵子?——基于“家庭财富-教育投资-贫富差距”的实证研究

文章首次从教育选择的角度出发,探讨了人力资本投资与收入差距之间的关系,作者首先建立了教育回报的代际交迭模型,推断出富裕家庭教育回报率高这个事实会拉大社会的贫富差距。作者使用1992年至2009年的中国城镇住户调查数据对理论推论进行了论证,实证结果表明出身"寒门"的子女期望教育回报率更低,这拉大了与富裕家庭群体的收入差距,也是"寒门难出贵子"的原因。自2001年来,家庭因素带来的教育回报差异能够解释19.1%的城镇居民收入差距,引入工具变量的结果表明,真实的情况可能更加严重。作者进一步模拟了"新常态"下的贫富差距状况,结果表明,经济潜在增速下降会使得基尼系数扩大6.1%。

Human Capital and Income Inequality under “New Normal” State

This paper explored the relationship between income inequality and human capital investment. We built up a theoretical model to say that higher return on education for high income family could cause higher income inequality. Empirical results from 1992-2009 China Urban Household Survey support our theoretical prediction. Children from family with lower income are more likely to attain lower return on education, resulting in an even lower family wealth compared to families with higher income, which can explain why intergenerational inequality can last for many periods.Empirical results show that 19.1% of urban household income inequality could be explained by the difference in return on education for different families. Estimation results from IV regression show that the real situation could be worse. Simulation results indicate that Gini coefficient would expand by 6.1% under "New Normal" State.