Income Satisfaction and Relative Deprivation: An Empirical Link

This paper explores the relationship between two well-established concepts of measuring individual well-being: the concept of happiness, i.e. self-reported level of satisfaction with income, and relative deprivation, i.e. the gaps between the individual’s income and the incomes of all individuals richer than him. Operationalizing both concepts using micro panel data from the German Socio-Economic Panel, we provide empirical evidence for subjective well-being depending more on relative deprivation than on absolute levels of income. This finding holds after controlling for other influential factors in a multivariate setting.      

Ways by which Comparable Income Affects Life Satisfaction in Hong Kong

Proponents of social equality attribute low life satisfaction to income inequality in society, an inequality which occurs when most people have relatively low income and only a few have high income. In contrast, range-frequency theory and other social comparison theories predict that when most people have low income, they are satisfied because of the absence of relative deprivation among themselves. This prediction essentially suggests that that the size of the group of individuals with comparable income (i.e., income parity) sustains their life satisfaction. This theoretical prediction, however, does not consider their desire to be distinctive. By incorporating the notion of optimal distinctiveness, the size of income parity may have a quadratic effect on the individual’s life satisfaction. This is a hypothesis that receives support from the present study in Hong Kong, China. The study finds a saddle point of income parity size associated with the lowest life satisfaction, other things being equal. Furthermore, middle-income individuals have income parity size equal to or above this saddle point. They would have higher life satisfaction with increased income parity size, which therefore leads to a more enlarged income inequality. Others, however, may have higher life satisfaction with reduced income parity size. Hence, reducing income inequality would have mixed effects on people with different levels of income.

劳动力迁移对收入分配的影响研究——以重庆市为例

劳动力迁移对收入分配影响的实证研究,可以度量我国劳动力迁移对收入水平提高程度和收入分配不均等程度,证实劳动力迁移可以大大提高迁移劳动力的收入水平,对于缩小地区、城乡之间以及不同人口特征的收入分配差距具有积极作用,稳定有序的劳动力迁移对于经济社会持续发展提供动力。     

Family income at the bottom and at the top: Income sources and family characteristics

Attention has recently been focused on wealth as a source of long-term economic security and on wealth ownership as a crucial aspect of the racial economic divisions in the United States. This literature, however has been concerned primarily with the wealth gap between poor and middle-class families, and between the white and black middle class. In this paper, we investigate the incomes of families at the top and bottom of the family income distribution. We examine the sources of income and the demographic characteristics of these high-income and low-income families using family level data from the 1988 to 2003 Current Population Surveys.     

香港产业结构变动对收入分配的影响——基于人口普查数据的分析

香港是全球发达的市场经济体之一,也是贫富差距最大的地区之一。本文主要采用香港2006、2001及2011年人口普查数据,并结合产业结构变动历史对香港产业结构变动如何影响收入分配的议题展开研究。本文认为,香港产业结构变动形塑了当前的行业、职业结构,决定了经济发展重心和未来发展方向。此外,经由教育途径,香港产业结构知识专业化的特征已日益凸显。由此,香港产业结构不但缔造了当地经济繁荣,同时通过行业、职业、教育等变量对香港收入分配产生了深远影响。作者期望,本研究的开展能为香港产业升级提供绵薄的科学参考依据,以此实现香港经济健康、可持续发展和收入分配公平的美好愿景。     

城镇低收入人群社会保障需求与供给研究综述

现有关于城镇低收入人群社会保障需求与供给的研究文献,是提高现行社会保障制度保障城镇低收入人群能力的必要决策参考。本文在界定城镇低收入人群、社会保障、社会保障需求、社会保障供给的基础上,梳理了国内外关于城镇低收入人群社会保障需求、城镇低收入人群社会保障供给、城镇低收入人群社会保障需求与供给差异的研究文献,研究发现,现有文献大多关注于城镇低收入人群的被动收入,注重制度保障,而对城镇低收入人群社会保障的需求量是多少,以及现有社会保障制度供给是否能满足他们的社会保障需求等问题则较少涉及。     

人力资本存量对我国劳动者收入分层的影响

本文利用社会分层理论和人力资本理论探讨了我国人力资本存量对劳动者收入分层的影响 ,分析了建国 50年来 ,在不同历史阶段人力资本存量对劳动者收入分层影响所表现出的不同特征 ,提出了市场经济改革是提高人力资本收益率的根本途径     

高原高山区人口分布特征及影响机制研究——基于空间计量经济学视角

提出并评述了关于人口分布传统研究的三个衍生问题:空间尺度不同可能产生"人口分布悖论"现象、空间相互独立的假设不尽合理、特定空间区域人口分布的复杂性。以此为切入点,通过空间计量分析方法,探讨中国川西高原高山区人口分布特征。研究表明,全局Moran's I值为0.7404,指示川西复杂地形区人口分布有十分显著的集群特征。以川西48个县域单元为对象,建立人口密度与相关影响因子的OLS估计、SLM估计和SEM估计,经空间依赖性检验,发现空间计量回归模型明显优于普通最小二乘回归模型,表明考虑了空间依赖性的估计方法能更好的刻画人口空间分布特征;经相关判别检验,确立SLM为最优模型,其纠正了OLS模型总体上高估自然环境因子而低估经济社会因子对人口密度影响的缺陷。并以SLM估计结果为基础分析了川西人口分布特征,特别解析了川西"人口分布悖论"的事实和原因。