损失规避与经济波动的福利成本研究

Loss Aversion and the Welfare Cost of Economic Fluctuations

目前经济波动的福利成本研究均建立在基于消费的效用函数基础上，而引入收入波动后我们发现：收入波动导致的福利成本才是更为重要的因素。本文定义的偏好具有损失规避的特点，在比较温和的参数设定下，考虑了收入波动后得到的福利成本指标A在1．4％--13．4％之间，比此前各种技术方法得到的A值提高了1—2个数量级。采用中国转型期以来的统计数据，消除短期波动的福利效果等同于将消费的长期增长率再提高约0．25个百分点，这表明如能进一步稳定经济的运行，仍会带来可观的福利提升。

Prior research on the welfare cost of economic fluctuations is based on a consumption-based utility function. We propose a revised model in which people are loss averse over fluctuations of their income. Our calculation shows that fluctuations of income play an uppermost role in the total welfare cost. The 2 value of welfare loss reaches 1.4%--13.4%, 1--2 orders higher than the estimates obtained before. We use Chinese statistics to show that the welfare effect of eliminating economic fluctuations equivalent to that of increasing the long-term growth rate of consumption by 0.25 percentage points, implying that further stability policy can effectively improve the level of social welfare.