中国家庭消费不平等:程度测度、形成机制及政策启示

Consumption Inequality of Chinese households:Measurement,Formation Mechanism and Policy Implications

缩小消费分布差距,提升整体消费率,充分释放内需潜力,是形成以国内大循环为主体的经济发展新格局的根本路径。文章基于中国家庭金融调查(CHFS)2013-2019年数据,将消费不平等和收入不平等置于同一分析框架,详细测度我国居民家庭各种消费的不平等程度,并进一步探讨整体消费不平等的形成机制。具体而言,一方面从收入和城乡分组这一单维组群分解的角度出发,获取中国家庭消费不平等的组内和组间差距,对消费不平等的形成机制进行初步探究;另一方面,运用基于回归方程的Shapley值分解法获取多种因素的贡献程度,全面分析消费不平等的形成原因,突出揭示不同种类消费不平等形成机制的差异。结果发现:在这一时期,消费不平等和收入不平等基本呈先升后降之势,收入的基尼系数在0.485-0.520之间波动,消费的基尼系数在0.456-0.510之间变化。在消费不平等的形成机制中,总体消费不平等主要是收入组间和城乡间消费差距引起的,收入是影响总消费不平等的重要因素,其相对贡献介于20-25%之间;生存型消费不平等和发展与享受型消费不平等的形成原因不一致,这可能与个体特征中的教育、年龄和健康因素有关。研究为全面认识消费不平等提供了新的理论依据和研究方向,对于有效缓解消费不平等具有一定的政策启示。

Narrowing the gap in consumption distribution,improving the overall consumption rate,and fully releasing the potential of domestic demand are the fundamental path to form a new pattern of economic development dominated by the domestic cycle.Based on the data of China Household Finance Survey(CHFS)from 2013 to 2019,this paper puts consumption inequality and income inequality in the same analytical framework,measures the inequality degree of various consumption of Chinese households in detail,and further discusses the formation mechanism of overall consumption inequality.Specifically,on the one hand,from the perspective of income and urban-rural grouping,which is a one-dimensional group decomposition,we can obtain the intra group and inter group gaps of household consumption inequality in China,and preliminarily explore the formation mechanism of consumption inequality;on the other hand,the Shapley value decomposition method based on regression equation is used to obtain the contribution degree of various factors,comprehensively analyze the causes of consumption inequality,and highlight the differences in the formation mechanism of different types of consumption inequality.The results show that during this period,consumption inequality and income inequality basically increased first and then decreased.The Gini coefficient of income fluctuated between 0.485 and 0.520,and the Gini coefficient of consumption varied between 0.456 and 0.510.In the formation mechanism of consumption inequality,the overall consumption inequality is mainly caused by the consumption gap between income groups and between urban and rural areas.Income is an important factor affecting total consumption inequality,and its relative contribution is between 20-25%.The reasons for the formation of subsistence consumption inequality and development and enjoyment consumption inequality are inconsistent,which may be related to the education,age and health factors in individual characteristics.This study provides a new theoretical basis and research direction for a comprehensive understanding of consumption inequality,and has some policy implications for effectively reducing consumption inequality.