福利刚性、公共支出结构与福利陷阱（英文）

Welfare Rigidity, the Composition of Public Expenditure and the Welfare Trap

公共福利支出具有易升不易降的刚性特征。在包含政府公共支出的内生增长模型中引入福利刚性,分析公共支出结构和福利刚性对经济增长和家庭效用影响的实证研究发现:福利支出与经济增长存在非单调关系,因国别差异的二者关系为或负向或倒U型。较强的福利刚性会降低经济长期增长态势和家庭效用。依据计算的最优公共福利支出规模,中国作为发展中人口大国,改善民生既要尽力而为,又要量力而行,公共福利支出应谨防落入“福利陷阱”。

Welfare expenditure is characterized by rigidity,i.e.,it goes up easily but is very hard to get down.We introduced welfare rigidity into an endogenous growth model that includes government expenditure to analyze the impact of welfare rigidity and the composition of public expenditure on economic growth and family utility.Our findings show that welfare spending and economic growth have a non-monotonic relationship that is negative or inverted U-shaped depending on cross-country differences.Higher welfare rigidity reduces long-term economic growth and household utility.According to the estimated optimal size of welfare expenditure,China,as a developing country with a large population,has to do all it can to improve people’s livelihood but must at the same time weigh its limited resources so that its welfare expenditure does not fall into a“welfare trap.”