收入不平等与财政再分配:富人俘获政府了吗

Income Inequality and Fiscal Redistribution:Has the Rich Captured Government?

本文提出一个非中间投票人决定财政再分配的模型,该模型揭示,富人使用其拥有的资本生产政府所期待的GDP,与政府就免税额进行谈判,从而使其纳税减少。中间投票人为了防止政府被俘获,将税率设置得足够低。政府还以转移支付吸引富人投资生产GDP,富人得到的转移支付增加。实证分析表明,中国政府为吸引资本,对资本税收优惠,并提供财政补贴,使高收入者收入越来越高,收入不平等越来越严重。文章建议,监督再分配程序,提高再分配透明度,使再分配按照公平正义原则进行。

This paper presents a model by which non-median voters decide fiscal redistribution. The model reveals that the rich will use its own capital to produce the GDP that the government expects. Thus, the rich negotiate with the government about the amount of tax exemption, resulting in the rich paying less tax. The median voters, in order to prevent the government from being captured, set the tax rate to a low enough level. Therefore, government uses transfer payments to attract the rich to invest in the production of GDP and the result is that the rich get more transfer payments. Empirical analysis shows that Chinese government has provided capital tax incentives and financial subsidies so as to attract capital, which makes high earners gain more and leads to even more severe income inequality. This paper suggests that the redistribution program should be supervised and the transparency of redistribution get improved so that the redistribution will be in accordance with the principle of fairness and justice.