新冠疫情冲击背景下的消费提振与政策选择

Consumption Stimulating and Policy Choice Under the Impact of Covid-19 Epidemic Shock

本文系统梳理了新冠疫情暴发后全球190个国家或地区消费提振政策的实施情况,采用逻辑回归模型,实证检验了一国(地区)政府是否实施消费提振政策及政策工具选择的影响因素,并采用随机森林模型对影响因素进行重要性排序。本文的主要研究发现包括:一是在重大外部冲击下,政府是否实施消费提振政策,主要是从社会、经济和政治等维度综合考虑,即老年人口占比越高、失业率越高、财政支出水平越低、选举程序多样性越强,该国(地区)政府实施消费提振政策的可能性越大;二是是否在发放现金的基础上额外发放消费券,主要是从政策效果、政策空间和实施方式等考虑,即储蓄率越高、第三产业占比越高、财政支出水平越高、法律制度完善度越低,该国(地区)政府发放消费券的可能性越大。本文的研究结论可为一国(地区)政府应对外部冲击制定消费提振政策提供国际借鉴和理论参考,并为中国采取消费券政策的选择提供理论和实证的支撑。

We analyzed the consumption-stimulating policies from 190 countries/regions around the world since the outbreak of the Covid-19 Epidemic.Logistic regression was used to identify the factors that influence a country's decision to implement consumption-stimulating policies.The importance of these factors was ranked using the random forest model.Our findings include:First,economic,social,and political variables all affect whether a country implements consumption-stimulating policies.The higher the propotion of the elderly population,the higher the unemployment rate,the lower the level of fiscal spending and the more diverse the electoral process,the more likely it is that the government of that country will implement a consumption boosting policy.Second,policymakers mainly consider policy effect,policy space and implementation methods when deciding on whether to issue vouchers.The higher its savings rate,the higher its share of the tertiary sector,the higher its level of fiscal spending and the lower its level of legal system sophistication,the more likely the country's government is to issue vouchers.Our results can serve as reference for policy makers when deciding on how to react to extemnal shocks through consumption-stimulating policies.Our conclusions also provide theoretical and empirical support for China's voucher policy.