住房公积金降费的稳就业效果及其解释

The Employment Stabilization Effect of Reducing Housing Provident Fund and Its Explanation

就业是最基本的民生,是经济发展的重要支撑。本文研究住房公积金改革的企业雇佣反应,分析公积金降费的稳就业作用,并逆向讨论公积金的制度属性问题。结果发现,下调公积金最低缴存比例会降低企业公积金支出,激励企业扩大雇佣需求,并达到稳定就业的效果。本文利用企业家主观调查数据发现,公积金降费让企业享受到实际优惠,这会提振企业发展预期,尤其是民营企业的预期改善效果更加明显,故带来更大的就业促进作用,体现民营企业将公积金作为成本而不是福利的可能性更大。劳动密集型与现金流缺乏的企业对缴存比例变动更加敏感,故公积金降费政策的企业预期改善和就业促进作用也更大。

Employment is the most basic livelihood and an important support for economic development.This paper explores the employment responses for enterprises to the Housing Provident Fund(HPF)reform,analyzes its effect on enterprise development and employment stabilization,and reversibly discusses the institutional attributes of the HPF.It finds that HPF reform reduces firms'expenditures,encourages firms to expand labor demand,and achieves the target of stabilizing employment.Using a unique subjective survey of entrepreneurs,we find that the HPF reduction enables firms to get more real benefits and boosts their development expectations.Furthermore,the policy reform improves much higher expectations for private firms and stimulates private firms to add more employment,which reflects the possibility of treating HPF as burden rather than benefits for private enterprises.Labor-intensive firms and firms with lack of cash flow are more sensitive to the HPF expenditures,so the expectation improvement and employment promotion effect of HPF reform for those enterprises are also significantly larger compared to other enterprises.