社保缴费率下降对企业社保缴费与劳动力雇佣的影响

The Effect of a Reduction of the Social Security Contribution Rate on Enterprise Social Security Participation and Labor Employment

社保缴费率下调已经成为激发中小企业活动、促进经济可持续发展的重要举措,系统评估社保缴费率下降对企业行为的影响有助于进一步优化社保缴费率政策。已有研究大多关注高社保缴费率的经济社会影响,而非缴费率下调的效应。在此背景下,本文以浙江省各地区2012年的社保缴费率下调统筹为切入点,利用双重差分法解决内生性问题,创新性地考察了社保降费对企业社保缴费与劳动力雇佣行为的影响。本文稳健地发现:一方面,养老保险缴费率下降显著提高了企业的社保参与率,并且提高了企业社保总缴费支出,这意味着降低社保缴费率政策实现了提高企业参保与保持社保基金平衡的双赢;另一方面,降低缴费率显著提高了企业劳动力需求,并且这一效应对于中小民营企业尤其明显,这意味着在当前经济形势下行的情景下,社保降费的确实现了稳就业、增信心的预期。本文的研究有助于从企业缴费与就业角度深入理解当前新一轮全国层面的社保缴费率下降政策可能带来的经济社会效应,同时也有助于后续配套改革措施的出台和调整。

The reduction of the social security contribution rate has become an important strategy for easing enterprises’financial burden and promoting sustainable development of the economy in China.The comprehensive evaluation of the impact of a reduction in the social security contribution rate on firm’s behavior has important academic and policy implications.A large strand of the literature has examined the socioeconomic consequences of a high social security contribution rate in China,but only few have studied the impact of the contribution rate reduction policy.This paper investigates the effect of a reduction in the social security contribution rate on a firm’s social security participation,social security payments,and labor employment.In particular,we focus on the policy that reduced the social security contribution rate in 2012 in Zhejiang Province.We use representative data(the National Tax Statistics Database)from 2007 to 2015,which contains information on nationally representative enterprises,including enterprises above the scale as well as small and medium-sized private enterprises sampled.We use a difference-in-differences model to address the endogeneity problem.We obtain several findings.First,the decrease in the contribution rate significantly improves the firm’s social security participation and increases the total social security payment,which indicates that the policy of reducing the social security contribution rate achieves a win-win scenario by increasing the participation rate of enterprises and,at the same time,maintaining the balance in the social security fund.Second,we find that the reduction in the contribution rate significantly increases the number of employees in enterprises,and this effect is especially strong for small and medium-sized private enterprises.Third,we further find that the decline in the contribution rate has no significant impact on the total wage expenditure of enterprises,but significantly reduces employee’s average wage.This suggests that the employment benefits brought by the reduction of the contribution rate at the focal stage may be mostly driven by the increase in the low-skilled labor force.This paper makes several contributions to the literature.First,most previous studies focus on a single outcome,such as social security participation or employment,and few examine both payment and employment behavior under the same framework.The impact of the social security contribution rate on enterprises is characterized by complexity and multiplicity,and investigation along multiple dimensions will allow us to obtain a more comprehensive understanding of the policy’s effect.Second,most studies use data at the regional level or on enterprises above a designated size or listed companies.These datasets largely ignore the impact of social security policies on small and medium-sized private enterprises.As an important component of China’s national economy,however,small and medium-sized enterprises have faced more difficulties and demands for transformation in recent decades.In addition,compared with listed companies or state-owned enterprises,small and medium-sized enterprises also have more incentive to evade social security participation.The dataset we use in this paper not only includes enterprises above the scale,but also private small and medium-sized enterprises,and as a consequence,our analysis may contribute to the literature by providing novel evidence on private small and medium-sized enterprises.Third,from a policy perspective,most of the existing research studies the effect of a high social security contribution rate rather than the effect of a reduction in the social security contribution rate in China,and most studies focus on the period before 2010.Since 2015,China’s social security contribution rate has experienced several small reductions,and the nationwide reduction that came into effective on May 1,2019 is the most drastic.To this end,this paper focuses on the contribution rate reduction in Zhejiang Province in 2012,and the research time period is between 2007 and 2015.The results of this paper will provide more distinct and direct policy implications.This paper can also provide policymakers with more comprehensive insights of the economic and social effects of the latest round of social security contribution rate reductions implemented from May 2019.