纠结的个税起征点

中国个人所得税法修正案草案于4月20日公布并进入人大审议阶段。如无意外,个税起征点即将从2000元调到3000元。50%的提升比例不可谓不给力。但有关部门先"意外"了,因为给力之举却没有获得预期中的好评如潮。一项调查显示,受访者7成不满意。对     

老年人收入结构与收入不平等研究

采用2013年和2018年中国家庭收入调查(CHIP)数据,基于收入来源视角和基尼系数分解法,对我国老年人收入结构和收入不平等进行了研究.结果显示:2013-2018年期间,老年收入结构显著变化,收入不平等程度呈现下降趋势.具体表现为,养老金收入比重下降,工资性收入比重显著增加.在收入不平等程度下降过程中,养老金收入的结构效应和集中效应起到强化作用,工资性收入结构效应起到阻碍作用,其他分项收入作用较弱;城乡老年人收入结构及其分布特征呈现显著差异性.据此,老年收入结构优化的方向应该是,稳定并逐步提高养老金等转移性收入水平和比重,适度调整和控制工资性收入、经营性净收入和财产性净收入在城乡间的均衡性,以缩小收入差距.     

Analysis of China's Unequal Income Distribution from the Perspective of Functional Income Distribution

中国收入分配的不平等在很大程度上表现为功能性收入分配的不平等,即随着经 济的发展,工资性收入占国民收入的比例越来越小,而现阶段中国二元经济结构下的 无限劳动力供给则是其主要原因。在一个具有凯恩斯主义特征的非均衡动态模型框架 下,我们的分析表明,劳动力的无限供给,不仅使工资无法对劳动力市场的供求状况 进行反应,而且使劳动生产率和物价变化对工资的影响也不敏感。这意味着,当存在 着劳动生产率的提高或由经济增长所带动的物价上涨时,工资的提高不够显著,从而 由经济增长或劳动生产率的提高所带来的利益大部分转化为利润而非工资。基于此, 要彻底扭转中国收入分配恶化趋势,根本途径仍然是保持经济的高速增长,加快工业 化和城市化进程,从而使农村剩余劳动力能够尽快被吸收。

关键词: 功能性收入?二元经济?劳动力供给

China's unequal income distribution is to a large extent expressed in unequal functional income distribution, that is, as China's economy develops, the share of wage income in national income falls. The unlimited supply of labor under China's current dual economic structure is the major reason for this. In a disequilibrium dynamic model framework with Keynesian features, empirical analysis shows that the unlimited supply of labor not only prevents wages from responding to supply and demand situation in the labor market, but also makes them insensitive to labor productivity and price changes. This suggests that when there is a rise in labor productivity or prices following economic growth, the rise in wages may not be sufficiently marked. The benefits derived from economic growth or labor productivity increases have been, to a very large extent, converted into profits and not wages. Therefore, if we are to reverse China's worsening income distribution, our fundamental path should remain the maintenance of high‐speed growth and the acceleration of urbanization and industrialization so that surplus rural labor can be absorbed as soon as possible.     

Explicit Versus Implicit Income Insurance

By supplementing income explicitly through payments or implicitly through taxes collected, income-based taxes and transfers make disposable income less variable. Because disposable income determines consumption, policies that smooth disposable income also create welfare improving consumption insurance. With data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics we find that annual consumption variation is reduced by almost 20 percent due to explicit and implicit income smoothing. Consumption insurance is as important economically as private health or automobile insurance. Although taxes have become an increasingly important source of consumption insurance, the 2001 income-tax reform legislation should have little effect on implicit consumption insurance.     

Analysis of China＇s Unequal Income Distribution from the Perspective of Functional Income Distribution

中国收入分配的不平等在很大程度上表现为功能性收入分配的不平等，即随着经济的发展，工资性收入占国民收入的比例越来越小，而现阶段中国二元经济结构下的无限劳动力供给则是其主要原因。在一个具有凯恩斯主义特征的非均衡动态模型框架下，我们的分析表明，劳动力的无限供给，不仅使工资无法对劳动力市场的供求状况进行反应，而且使劳动生产率和物价变化对工资的影响也不敏感。这意味着，当存在着劳动生产率的提高或由经济增长所带动的物价上涨时，工资的提高不够显著，从而由经济增长或劳动生产率的提高所带来的利益大部分转化为利润而非工资。基于此，要彻底扭转中国收入分配恶化趋势，根本途径仍然是保持经济的高速增长，加快工业化和城市化进程，从而使农村剩余劳动力能够尽快被吸收。     

Low‐Income Students and College Attendance: An Exploration of Income Expectations*

Objectives. Some have hypothesized that unrealistic expectations regarding their futures may explain the weak link between expectations and realizations among low‐income (particularly minority) youth. Unfortunately, there is little evidence characterizing students' expectations around the time that they make college decisions that would allow one to study this hypothesis. Methods. In this exploratory article, I analyze data on income expectations from a small sample of low‐income minority high school seniors in Baltimore City, MD; and use data from Dominitz and Manski's sample of higher‐income white students in Madison, WI, and the NELS88 for comparisons. Results. I find little evidence that the income expectations of lower‐income minority students are so different from those of higher‐income students. Rather, the expected returns to postsecondary education appear similar between the two samples of high school seniors. Analysis of a nationally representative sample of high school seniors suggests that lower‐income students do not place less weight on expected economic returns to college when making their plans than do more advantaged students, although low‐income students are less able to translate their college plans into actual college attendance. Conclusions. These results suggest that differing income expectations do not explain the weaker relationship between expectations and educational attainment among low‐income students.     

增加农民收入的几点思考

发展农村经济,有效增加农民收入,是当前一个亟待研究和解决的重大问题。要解决好这个问题,应从以下方面着手建构新的国民收入分配体系,增加对“三农”的投入,建立和完善农产品价格支持政策;加快农村产业结构调整的步伐,提高农业整体效益。拓宽农民就业渠道,有效增加农民收入;加快城镇化步伐,促进农业富余劳动力转移;以三个转变强化销售,拉动农村经济结构调整和产业化建设;加快农业科技进步,推动农村经济发展。     

Social Worker Assessed Vulnerable Income Management

Despite the small size of the sub program, Social Worker Assessed Vulnerable Welfare Payment Recipients Income Management is often cited as a preferred approach to this type of initiative, being tightly targeted at a group of people with identified high needs, and demonstrated poor outcomes. Although the program was considered in the two recent major evaluations of income management, specific findings relating to it have tended to be overshadowed by the more general finding of an absence of positive outcomes, and indeed potentially negative effects, from compulsory income management. While the size of the sub program has made evaluation difficult, the two major evaluations of income management have nevertheless made specific findings which suggest that the program has had some positive outcomes for a highly marginal participant group. These findings, along with aspects of the operation of the program, including the role played by social workers, and a proposal to abolish the program, are discussed.     

后危机时代增加居民收入的重点与对策

后金融危机时代,中国扩大内需的根基在于增加居民收入,而增加居民收入的重点在于增加中低收入群体的收入。提高中低收入群体收入的对策,从城乡居民收入及其收入结构来看,要加快增加农村居民收入并优化其收入结构;从城镇居民收入及其收入结构来看,重点要放在提高中低收入群体收入并优化其收入结构上。     

Violations of Present-Value Maximization in Income Choice

We report results of an experiment testing for present-value maximization in intertemporal income choice. Two-thirds of subjects did not maximize present value. Through a series of experimental manipulations that impose costs on non-present value maximizers, we are able to reduce the level of violations substantially. We find, however, that a sizeable proportion of subjects continue to systematically violate present-value principles. Our interpretation is that these subjects either cannot or choose not to distinguish between t income and t expenditure in making their choices. Self-management, bounded rationality, and sequence preference are suggested as possible explanations for such behavior.     

Monitoring Income Maintenance Policies for Single Mothers

The Supporting Parent's Benefit was introduced in 1973 in an atmosphere of controversy. It provided Australian government support for certain low income groups of mothers with dependent children, for the first time. An attempt has been made in this study to assess the impact of long term income maintenance on these hitherto unsupported mothers. Changes in the population of beneficiaries have been monitored by analysing annual aggregate figures taken at 30 June for the years 1974 to 1979 which were provided by the Department of Social Security. The non-married subgroup which is the largest group of mothers and children is of particular interest. Claims that adolescents have been encouraged to take on the care of their ex-nuptial children simply because financial support is available are not substantiated. However, it is evident that, for more than half the total number of ex-nuptial mothers, Supporting Parent's Benefit must be relied on for a period of many years. This study indicates that this subgroup generally have fewer material resources than the married supporting mothers so that the long term effects of long term low income existence on mothers and children needs to be known in order to gauge the overall results of the introduction of the benefit. The question why some ex-nuptial mothers become independent of support quickly and others do not merits further investigation as it may provide important clues to ways of improving the benefit program.     

Income redistribution in 20 countries over time

In most OECD countries, the gap between rich and poor has widened over the past decades. The present study analysed whether and to what extent direct taxes and social transfers contribute to this trend. The study contributes to the literature by disentangling several parts of fiscal redistribution in a comparative setting. We used micro‐data from the Luxembourg Income Study to examine household market inequality and redistribution from transfers and taxes for 20 countries from the mid‐1980s to the mid‐2000s. The contribution of each programme was estimated using a sequential accounting budget incidence decomposition technique. We observed a sizeable increase in primary household inequality, but tax‐benefit systems have offset two thirds of the average increase in primary income inequality. The public old‐age pensions attributed 60 per cent to the increase in redistribution, while social assistance accounted for 20 per cent. Direct taxes slowed down redistribution by 16 per cent.