Market or Non-Market? An Empirical Analysis of the Main Causes of Income Inequalities in China Today

关于中国收入不平等的形成机制问题,已有研究大体形成两种归因模式,第一种模式主要甚至完全把这种不平等归因于中国经济的市场化进程,第二种模式则主要甚至完全归因于非市场化机制。本文基于1989-2008年进行的8次全国性住户抽样调查数据,首先运用分组分解方法对这20年中的中国收入不平等的成因进行实证分析,对根据学术界流行的几个主要论断提出的假设进行检验;然后运用基于回归的夏普里值分解分析方法,把通过半对数线性回归发现的对中国现阶段收入分配有显著影响的主要变量纳入一个统一分解分析框架,估计出每一种变量的集中程度对总体收入不平等的贡献,对本文提出的一个综合性假设进行综合检验。分析结果表明,中国收入不平等的成因是复杂的,市场化机制扮演着主要的角色,非市场的结构—制度因素也发挥着不可忽视的作用,还有一些因素所起的作用则具有混合性质。

 In existent researches on mechanisms of the making of income inequalities in China since 1978，there are two kinds of causal-attributing patterns. The first pattern ascribes income inequalities mainly or completely to the process of economic marketization，while the second one ascribes them mainly or completely to various non-market mechanisms. Based on eight nation-wide surveys of rural and urban households from 1989 to 2008，this paper firstly applies methodologies of inequality 243 decomposition by groupings to analyze the causes of income inequalities during these 20 years，and to test several assumptions in relation to important and relevant arguments popular in China. Then，in order to test a comprehensive hypothesis put forward in this paper，the paper use the Sharpley-Value decomposition approach based on semi-logarithmic linear regression to estimate the contributions of factors to the total income inequality. Putting the factors into a united model of decomposition， the factors having important effects on income inequalities are found in the analysis of regression. Results of the analyses show that the causes of income inequalities are very complicated in China，among which the mechanisms of economic marketization play main roles，meanwhile，the structural-institutional factors irrelevant to the process of marketization also have important effects; and the contributions of other factors mix effects of marketization mechanisms and non-marketization mechanisms together.

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