中国体制转型与城镇居民家庭财富分配差距——一个资产转换的视角

Institutional Reforms and Household Wealth Inequality:A Property Transformation Perspective on China’s Housing Reform

本文以中国城镇住房改革为例,从资产转换的角度研究了中国体制转型过程中城镇居民家庭财富积累及分配差距的产生。20世纪80年代以来的房屋政策鼓励工作单位将住房出售给现有居民,即住房商品化。通过1988、1995和2002年中国城镇住户收入调查的数据分析,20世纪90年代中期以来的住房商品化过程中,相对于私营部门居民家庭,干部和国有单位工作的家庭更容易以折扣价从工作单位获得住房。随着近期住房市场的繁荣,原有的以及住房商品化过程中产生的住房不平等,已经转化成国有和私营部门家庭财富的更大差距,而且干部的住房增值优势和国有部门家庭的财富优势随着市场化的推进有加速增加的趋势。

This paper proposes a property transformation perspective to study the mechanisms of wealth accumulation and wealth disparity creation during China’s post socialist transformation. It examines how housing privatization, marketization have translated a greater wealth inequality between cadres and private entrepreneur households, between state sectors and private sectors. In the 1980s, cadres and those working in the public sectors were more likely to be assigned a bigger and better house for almost free, whereas those in the private sectors had to rely on a self-built or inherited house, or even buy a house from the market. The housing policies since the 1980s have essentially encouraged working units to privatize their houses by selling them to existing residents. Data analyses of the Chinese Household Income Project 1988,1995 and 2002 show that with the large scale housing privatization since the mid-1990s, cadres and those working in the state sectors are more likely to obtain a private house from their working units at a discounted price than those in the private sectors.With the recent boom of housing market in China, housing inequality prior to and during the housing privatization has been translated greater disparity in housing value and household wealth between those working in the state sectors and those in the private sectors. In addition, their advantages of housing value and total wealth seem accelerating with the rapid development of housing market and privatization.