房价与居民消费不平等

Price of Housing and Household Consumption Inequality

不断上涨的房价是否是我国近年来消费不平等程度上升的一个重要原因呢?在从理论上分析了房价对居民消费不平等的影响机制之后,使用我国115个地级市的微观数据为样本进行实证研究,得到了如下结论:(1)不论是使用基尼系数还是使用泰尔指数作为消费不平等的度量指标,房价上涨均显著提高了居民消费的不平等程度。(2)房价对居民消费不平等的影响存在地区与城市异质性,从区域差异来看,房价上涨对东部居民消费不平等的影响最大,中部次之,西部最弱;从城市等级来看,房价上涨对一、二线城市居民消费不平等的影响最大,对三线及以下城市的影响相对较弱。(3)中介机制分析表明,房价上涨主要通过财富效应、预防性储蓄效应、预算约束效应和信心效应提高了居民消费不平等水平,房价上涨的流动性约束效应并不是影响居民消费不平等的有效传导途径。

Is the rising house price an important reason for the rise of consumption inequality in China in recent years?This paper theoretically analyzes the influence mechanism of house price on the inequality of consumption.Based on the micro data of 115 prefecture level cities in China,this paper makes an empirical study and draws the following conclusions:(1)Whether Gini coefficient or Theil coefficient is used as a measure of consumption inequality,the rise of house price increases the level of consumption inequality.(2)There are regional and urban heterogeneity in the impact of house price on the household consumption inequality.From the perspective of regional differences,the rise of house price has the greatest impact on the consumption inequality of residents in the east,followed by the central and eastern regions;and from the perspective of city level,the rise of house price has the greatest impact on the inequality of residents consumption in the first and second tier cities,while the impact on the third and lower tier cities is relatively weak.(3)The analysis of intermediary mechanism shows that the rise of house price mainly improves the inequality of consumption through wealth effect,preventive saving effect,budget constraint effect and confidence effect,the liquidity constraint effect of rising house prices is not an effective transmission mechanism to affect the inequality of consumption.This paper provides a new perspective to understand the changes of the inequality of consumption.