税收优惠对就业与工资的影响——基于增值税转型改革的准自然实验

On Employment and Wages of Impact of Tax Incentives——A Quasi-natural Experiment Based on China’s Value-added Tax Reform

税收优惠是政府推动经济发展与改善民生的重要举措,但减税降费的同时也可能促使企业用资本替代劳动,最终减少就业与工资。基于1998~2007年中国工业企业数据库,借助双重差分方法研究了东北增值税转型试点政策对就业与工资的影响。研究发现,增值税转型政策显著降低了企业的资本相对价格,通过资本替代劳动的机制显著减少了雇佣人数与人均工资。这一负向影响在规模较大、初始增值税率较高、资本密集度较高、劳动密集度较低的企业中更大。这些发现表明,政府应在实施税收优惠政策的同时出台一系列配套措施,以兼顾支持企业发展与保障劳动者权益。

Tax-incentives is one of the important measures taken by government to promote economic development and improve workers’ welfare. However, this policy may also prompt firms to replace labor with capital, which ultimately reduces employment and wages. Based on the 1998-2007 “Chinese Industrial Enterprise Database”, this paper uses and the difference-in-differences method to estimate the effects of VAT transformation policy on firms’ employment and wages. We find that China’s VAT transformation policy significantly reduces employment and wages. The effects are greater in larger, higher initial VAT-rate, higher capital intensity and lower labor intensity firms. These findings indicate that, to support firms development and protect workers’ welfare, the government should introduce some related supporting measures at the same time of tax-incentives.