近代中国的收入分配：一个定量的研究

【作者】 关永强；

【导师】 张东刚；

【作者基本信息】 南开大学 ， 经济史， 2009， 博士

【摘要】 收入分配,一方面与经济发展构成了一个经济体的两个主要方面,另一方面又和社会、道德和政治问题紧密相关,因此是经济学研究中一个的十分重要领域,长期以来得到了很多经济学者的重视。尤其是1970年代以后,各国学者对收入分配的兴趣日益浓厚,出现了大量从各种角度考察收入分配问题的研究成果。而其中从长时段的经济史视角考察收入分配的研究也与日俱增,但这些研究主要集中在发达国家,而对发展中国家包括中国长时段内收入分配及其变化趋势的研究则尚付阙如,本文就试图依托近代大量的统计调查资料,来弥补这一空白,对近代中国收入分配展开一个较全面的定量考察。目前学界关于收入分配的研究大多采用功能性收入分配和规模性收入分配这两种思路,本文在规模性分配的基础上,借鉴新的广延性功能性收入分配的理念,分部门、分地区来考察近代中国的收入分配差距及变动情况,同时从研究的框架扩大到包括财政和国际因素等在内,以期能够对近代收入分配及其变动趋势作出更全面的考察和解释。在这种研究方法的指导下,本文正文共分三个部分,上篇采用纵切面的视角,从收入分配、消费差异和地权分配这三个角度来讨论近代农村的收入分配及其变动情况;中篇则采用横截面的视角,分阶层研究近代城市的收入水平及其差距;下篇从财政和国际因素这两个方面对近代中国收入分配的状况和变动趋势提出解释。上篇包括第一至三章。第一章讨论近代中国农家的收入与分配,首先介绍近代中国农家的收入状况和地区间、阶层间收入分配的差异情况;之后讨论造成近代农家地区间收入差异扩大的重要原因——副业收入;然后再分别考察近代以来处于农村收入最高阶层的地主和最低阶层的雇农情况,以了解近代农家阶层间收入分配变化的趋势。第二章从近代中国农家的消费、负债与生活水平角度来考察农家收入的差距情况,首先以恩格尔系数为指标来讨论近代中国农家的日常消费水平和各阶层间消费水平的差异;之后考察近代农家中收不抵支和负债农户所占的比例,并进而分析农家负债的主要用途种类;在此基础上,再对近代中国农家的生存状态作一个简单的总结。第三章从近代中国农村的地权分配角度来验证前面两章关于收入差距的结论,首先对以往关于近代中国农村地权分配的主要研究文献进行回顾并指出本文在研究方法上的不同之处;之后分别讨论近代华北、南方、东北和西南地区的地权分配状况和变动趋势;最后对近代中国地权分配情况进行总结,并进而讨论土地革命的经济意义所在。中篇包括第四至第七章。第四章考察近代中国城市的新式富有阶层,首先回顾了以往学者对近代买办阶层总收入的估算,并将部分大买办商人的财富额与清代传统商人进行了比较;然后再分析近代民族产业资本的总体规模和地区分布等特点,讨论了典型企业的利润率状况。第五章讨论近代中国城市的中产阶层,首先考察近代高等学校和新闻出版业高级知识分子的收入水平,之后讨论近代政府官员、军官、企业管理和技术人员的收入情况,以此来代表近代中国社会中的中产阶层经济状况。第六章分析近代中国城市工人的收入状况,首先讨论近代中国城市工厂工人的工资水平和变动趋势;然后考察与工厂工人相类似的各类工厂雇工、矿工和铁路工人的收入状况及其相互间的异同;之后再通过恩格尔系数来分析近代中国城市工人的消费水平并与其他国家历史上的工人消费水平进行比较。第七章首先考察了近代中国的各类中下层市民,包括政府公务人员、工商服务业职员、下层知识分子和底层劳动者等;然后在此基础上讨论近代中国城市中存在的大量非正规就业和失业,分析二元经济转型的失败及其原因。下篇包括第八、第九章和结论。第八章从财政因素出发,从近代侵华战争对中国中央财政的侵蚀和地方行政正规化带来的财政压力两个角度,论述了近代中国中央和地方财政的紧缺导致了政府无力投资发展新式工业,也无足够的资源投入民生问题的解决,从而造成了下层民众的生活日益窘迫,而上层工业资本积累缓慢,二元经济转型迟缓。第九章分析影响中国近代收入分配的国际因素,首先考察近代侵华战争对中国国民收入与分配的影响,包括近代侵华战争中的直接经济掠夺、抗日战争中的恶性通货膨胀和中国经济结构的变迁;其次分析近代外资在华公司对中国收入分配的影响,包括近代外资在华公司的总体状况和近代外资企业对民族资本的抑制;最后分析了近代中国对外贸易和国际市场对于国民收入分配的影响。在以上章节的基础上,本文最后提出了关于近代中国收入分配的十项推论,并提出了笔者在经济史研究方法上的一些体会。在写作过程中,本文坚持以广义政治经济学的思想为指导,避免过度盲从经济学理论,将收入分配问题置于近代和中国的具体语境中进行考察,从近代中国的具体国情出发,实事求是地分析和验证相关的收入分配理论,得出符合中国实际的结论。更多还原

【Abstract】 Income distribution, along with economic growth, describes the most important features of an economy. It also has very close relationships with other aspects of our society, such as morality, politics, and social stability. Due to its importance, concern with income distribution has been a considerable part of economics since the very beginning. David Ricardo (1817) opened the study of functional distribution referring to the shares of national income among the owners of primary factors of production: land, capital and labor. This approach then dominated the study of income distribution from the Classical, Marxian, Neo-Keynesian and Neoclassical schools until the 1950s, and is still broadly applied in contemporary studies. After 1950s, partly thanks to the famous article by Kuznets (1955), partly because of the better description of social equality and welfare analysis, size distribution, which had been originally brought forward by Vilfredo Pareto, was adopted by more and more researchers on social welfare shares by different income levels.A boom of income distribution studies took place after the 1970s, mainly because of extensive disappointment at the weakness of the so-called trickle-down effect. Besides the large numbers of investigations and research supported by UN and World Bank on almost all developing countries, more and more empirical studies have also been made by many economists around the world, especially on reforming China. These studies have covered almost all kinds of perspectives, including econometric measurements of income distribution, the income distributive effects of economic growth, education, financial markets, foreign trade, migration, exchange rates, public policy and redistribution, gender inequality, etc.To get a better understanding of the trend in income distribution, the long term or historical perspective was also adopted. However, due to the data imperfection and language restrictions, the above historical studies were only made for developed countries in Europe, North America and Japan during recent centuries, excluding modern China.Methodologically, Adelman and Robinson (1978) first adopted the newly developed CGE model in the study of Korean income distribution, which was defined as extended functional income distribution, the third concept of income distribution besides the functional and size ones. This approach was soon accepted and applied by some other studies such as Taylor, Bacha, Cardoso and Lysy (1980), because of its distinctive advantages in income studies disaggregated by various sectors and modes of economy, such as urban and rural groups, importers and exporters, and regional comparison. Thus is very helpful in research measuring influences on selected items from certain factors. Due to its special design, the extended functional distribution is also more sensitive to exogenous shocks such as price, government policy, migration and other institutional and historical factors than size distribution. Therefore, different from the nationwide study of functional distribution and size distribution, extended functional distribution shed light on the importance of disaggregated studies in spite of data limit, allowing us to consider modern China’s income distribution in regional and sectional perspectives despite imperfect data.Following the ideas of extended functional distribution, I will adopt a sectional perspective in this study. The whole book will be divided into three parts; each studies the income distribution in rural area, urban area, and the fiscal and foreign factors’ influences on income distribution.An empirical study of the status and moving trend of modern Chinese income distribution in rural areas will be presented in Part I (chapter 1-3).Chapter 1 introduces the income gap between each classes and different regions. The handicraft income appears to be an important reason for the enlargement of the income gap between different regions. And the emigration of absentee landlords and rural intellectuals explains why the income difference between each class was not very remarkable. Chapter 2 studies the consumption, household balance and debt in rural area. The Engel Coefficients by class does not differ a lot. The proportion of deficient households was found to be about 1/3, and the indebted proportion almost 1/2, including some landlords and rich farmers. Within all the rural debts, more than 70% of them were used in non-productive purpose such as subsistence necessity, wedding consumption and bereavement cost. Land is the most important factor in rural production. Chapter 3 studies the land distribution by region. The Gini coefficients vary a lot, but no adequate evidence is found supporting that the land?distribution gap is getting larger.PartⅡ(chapter 4-7) concentrates on the urban areas and the Dual Economy Transition between urban and rural areas.Chapter 4 first reviews the compradors’ income and compares it with the income of traditional merchants, then analyses the scale, location and profit rate of national industry. Chapter 5 studies the income of middle class in modern Chinese urban areas, including high level intellectual, government officers, military officers, engineers and managers.Chapter 6 studies about the income and consumption level of different kinds of workers from modern factory, mine, and railway. Chapter 7 first observes the income level of common townsfolk, including government staffs, school teachers, coolies and etc. Based on above studies, the serious unemployment and the failure of Dual Economy Transition in modern China will also be reviewed.PartⅢ(chapter 8-9) is trying to give to fiscal and foreign reason to the above income distribution status. Chapter 8 studies about the central and local government financial status, partly explains the failure of Dual Economy Transition and the worsen of rural living condition. Chapter 9 attempts to widen our research scope to observe modern China from a global perspective. This design was based on two reasons. On one side, modern China was highly influenced and shaped by international political and economic factors, whose distributive influences must be taken into account during our study to gain deeper understanding of modern China’s income distribution. On the other side, it might be theoretically beneficial to include the case study of modern China from late 1840 to 1949 into the globalization-income distribution framework.Some deductions of income distribution in modern China are given in the last chapter; however, it is far not a conclusion. More and deeper studies will be needed to explore this topic.更多还原