流行病加剧了经济不平等吗?--基于国家能力的调节效应分析

Do Epidemics Lead to More Economic Inequality?An Analysis of the Moderating Role of State Capacity

大规模流行病是否会加剧经济不平等?国家应如何减轻流行病对收入分配造成的冲击?既有研究未能充分发掘流行病与经济不平等之间关系的异质性,尤其是未能将国家能力引入讨论。文章指出,工业化时代以来的流行病总体上加剧了经济不平等,但两者之间的关联是条件式的,强国家能力有助于缓和流行病对收入分配格局的负面冲击:一方面,强汲取能力为国家有效应对危机并施行再分配政策提供了基础条件;另一方面,强分配能力有助于增强资金使用效能,即使在资金总量有限的情况下也能够缓和经济不平等。实证部分以21世纪以来发生的五次全球性流行病为样本,构建了跨国面板数据库(2000-2018年),采用双向固定效应模型对理论假设进行检验,结果表明流行病与基尼系数的年变化值呈显著正相关,汲取能力和分配能力均负向调节流行病对经济不平等的边际效应。研究进一步就加强国家能力、降低经济不平等提出政策建议:一是利用数字技术赋能,加快建设居民收入和财产信息系统,增强国家信息能力;二是深化税制改革,提高直接税比重,更好地发挥税收调节收入分配的作用;三是加强财政纪律和预算监督,提高转移支付资金使用效率。

Do epidemics lead to more economic inequality?If so,what should states do to alleviate such adverse effects?Existing studies have not established clear and robust associations between epidemics and economic inequality for overlooking the role of state capacity.This paper argues epidemics in modern times tend to exacerbate economic inequality and the association is highly conditional on state capacity.Strong state extractive capacity lays a foundation for handling crises and implementing redistributive policies,while strong redistribution capacity directly leads to better policy efficacy.The five epidemics occurring since the 21st century were used to construct a cross-national time-series database(2000-2018).The results of statistical analyses show,all else being equal,epidemics breed more economic inequality and that both extractive capacity and redistribution capacity reduce the marginal effects.Policy implications for building state capacity and reducing economic inequality include enhancing state information capacity through establishing a digital system of citizens'income and property,optimizing the tax revenue structure to better adjust income distribution,and strengthening fiscal discipline and budgetary supervision to improve the efficiency of transfer payments usage.