消费保险视角下农村扶贫政策的福利效应分析

The Welfare Effect of Poverty Alleviation Policy under the Perspective of Consumption Insurance

消费保险能力作为连接收入和消费的纽带,是衡量家庭福利至关重要的指标。本文测算了1986—2017年中国农村家庭收入风险和消费风险的动态变化,以及家庭对不同类型收入风险的消费保险能力;基于1994年和2012年两个重要政策节点,考察了国家级贫困县政策能否提高农村家庭的抗风险能力,以及精准扶贫战略的实施是否强化了该政策效果。研究表明,中国农村家庭整体上能够分别平滑8.35%的持久性收入冲击和85.43%的暂时性收入冲击。同时,国家级贫困县政策的实施能够提高贫困县农村家庭对持久性收入冲击的消费保险能力,精准扶贫战略进一步提升了该政策效果。异质性分析发现,政策效果主要集中在低收入家庭和低教育程度家庭,并通过增加当地非农劳动供给增强农村家庭对收入风险的缓冲能力。本文还从收入增长、收入风险和消费保险三个方面分解量化了扶贫政策对家庭的福利效应。结果显示,国家级贫困县政策使贫困县农村家庭总福利增加了3.58%—5.81%,并且消费保险能力的改善是政策增加福利的主要作用渠道,收入增长效应作用并不明显。本文的研究为从理论上刻画中国家庭的消费行为提供了重要的实证依据,也为实施更具针对性的扶贫政策提供了理论和实证支撑,对建立解决相对贫困长效机制具有启示意义。

As an important link between income and consumption,consumption insurance is an essential indicator for weighting household welfare.This paper measures the dynamic evolution of income risk and consumption risk in rural China from 1986 to 2017,as well as estimates the consumption insurance parameters for different types of income risk.Leveraging two important policy changes in 1994 and 2012,we further evaluate the long-term effect of the poverty alleviation policy for National Poor Counties from the new perspective of consumption insurance.The estimation results show that rural households in China can smooth 8.35%of the permanent income shocks and 85.43%of the temporary income shock respectively.Meanwhile,the poverty alleviation policy increases households’ability of consumption insurance with respect to permanent income shocks in National Poor Counties,and the Targeted Poverty Alleviation policy enhances the effect to a great extent.The heterogeneity analysis shows that the policy effect is mainly concentrated in low-income households and low-educated households,and improves the rural households’ability to buffer income risk by increasing local non-farm labor supply.Welfare analysis shows that the poverty alleviation policy has increased household welfare by 3.58%-5.81%in rural China,and the enhanced ability of consumption insurance is the main mechanism.This paper provides an important empirical regularity for the consumption behavior of households in rural China.These new findings not only provide theoretical and empirical support for poverty alleviation policy in China,but also serve as a useful reference for establishing long-term mechanisms aiming to eliminate relative poverty.