中国经济增长与经济平等——基于福利分析的视角

Economic Growth and Economic Equality of China——From the Perspective of Welfare Analysis

卢卡斯(Lucas,2004)声称通过分配当前的产出(经济平等)来改进人们生活水平的潜能与经济增长相比是微不足道的,因此政府应该将其主要精力放在维持尽可能高的经济增长速度上。卢卡斯的论断不能适用于中国的具体情况。以消费增长和消费不平等来衡量经济增长和经济不平等,运用30个省份的人均消费数据从三个角度比较中国经济增长的福利收益与经济不平等的福利成本。研究结果表明,对于合理的偏好参数和中国的宏观经济数据,经济增长带来的福利收益远不能抵消经济不平等带来的福利成本。因此,中国现阶段在积极促进经济增长的同时,必须把消除经济不平等放在与经济增长同等重要的位置上。

Lucas（2004） announced that compared with economic growth,it was insignificant to improve people＇s potential of living standard by allocating present production（economic equality）,so government should focus on sustaining the highest possible economic growth rate.The author argues that assertion of Lucas is inapplicable to China.The paper uses consumption growth and consumption inequality to measure economic growth and economic inequality,and per capita consumption data of 30 provinces are used to compare China＇s welfare benifit of economic growth with welfare costs of economic inequality from three aspects.Research results show that to China＇s reasonable preference parameter and the macroeconomic data,the welfare benefit of economic growth cannot far offset welfare costs of economic inequality.Therefore,while promoting economic growth at present,China should lay emphasis on both economic growth and eliminating economic inequality.