中等收入群体的测度方法和应用——基于CHIP数据的分析

The Measurement Method of Middle-income Group and Its Application:Empirical Evidence from CHIP

对中等收入群体进行科学测度是制定量化政策目标和进行有效规模监控的重要前提。文章提出,理想的测度方法至少需要满足测度标准具有经济合理性、能体现地区差异和能实现自动调整3个方面的要求。对现有测度方法的评价发现,与相对标准法和绝对标准法相比,混合标准法更具优势。依据混合标准法的原理,文章提出了一种新测度方法:中等收入群体被界定为家庭人均年收入处于当地城镇家庭食品人均消费支出3倍到家庭人均年收入中位数3倍之间的群体。利用中国家庭收入调查(CHIP)数据的应用研究发现,中国已经形成了相当规模的中等收入群体,该群体的分布存在明显的地区差异和城乡差异。文章对测度结果的比较分析表明,利用新的方法得到的测度结果更为合理。

Scientific measurement of middle-income group is an important prerequisite for determining quantitative policy objectives and monitoring group’s scale effectively. The ideal measurement needs to meet at least three requirements, which relate to economic rationality, regional difference and automatic adjustment. The evaluation of the existing measurement methods shows that the hybrid standard method has more advantages than the relative standard method and the absolute standard method. According to the principle of hybrid standard method, a new measurement method of middle- income group is developed. The middle-income group is defined as the households with an annual per capita income between three times per capita food consumption expenditure of urban household in the region and three times the median per capita income of the household. The empirical results from CHIP data reveal that China has formed a large-scale middle-income group, and its distribution has been of obvious regional differences and urban-rural differences. The comparative analysis of the measurement results suggests that the measurement results obtained by the new method are more reasonable.