中国经济周期的异质性信念与福利成本

The Heterogeneous Beliefs and the Welfare Cost of Business Cycles of China

当家庭对于中国经济波动具有异质性信念时,中国经济周期的福利成本是否会发生变化?本文试图对这一问题做出回答。研究结果表明,异质性信念从两个途径影响我们对于经济周期进行的福利评价:第一个途径是信念的异质性可以减小家庭的风险厌恶系数,从而增加家庭的风险容忍能力;第二个途径是信念的异质性改变了中央计划者对于经济波动的主观概率分布函数的形态。按照本文的这一结论以及相应的中国宏观经济数值模拟结果,中国宏观经济周期的福利成本比按照以往模型所计算的结果要略小些。

Does the welfare cost of China's business cycles change when households have heterogeneous beliefs about China's economic fluctuations? In this paper, we attempt to answer this question. The result of our study indicates that the heterogeneous beliefs affect our evaluation, in welfare, of the cost of economic cycles by two facts: (1) the fact that the heterogeneity of beliefs can decrease the household's risk aversion coefficients, thereby increasing the household's ability of tolerating risks; (2) the fact that the heterogeneity of beliefs has changed central planners' subjective probability distribution form concerning economic fluctuation. According to the above-mentioned conclusion and the corresponding results of the numerical value of simulated China's macro-economy, it follows that the welfare cost of China's macro-economic cycles is slightly lower than that calculate by means of traditional models.