劳动力成本变动、成本-价格传导与收入分配:基于社保降费的考察  

Labor Costs Change,Cost-Price Transmission and Income Distribution:An Investigation Based on the Reduction in Social Security Contributions

作　　者：徐舒[1] 张冰 魏文博 XU Shu;ZHANG Bing;WEI Wenbo(School of Economics,Southwestern University of Finance and Economics)

机构地区：[1]西南财经大学经济学院

出　　处：《经济研究》2024年第6期126-143,共18页Economic Research Journal

基　　金：国家自然科学基金面上项目(72173099);四川省科技计划项目(重点研发项目)(2022YFG0036)的资助。

摘　　要：劳动力成本的上升不仅会引发名义工资在不同劳动力群体中的非对称调整,还会通过成本—价格传导引起产品价格不同程度的上涨,最终扩大劳动者的消费差距和实际收入不平等。本文基于理论模型并结合微观数据验证了上述机制,并表明对冲劳动力成本上涨的社保降费政策能有效改善收入分配、降低实际收入不平等。实证结果显示,当企业单位劳动成本下降时,中低收入家庭受益更多。其中,均衡工资率上升是中低收入家庭消费福利改善的主要渠道,但商品价格降低在其福利改善中占比超过1/3,是不可忽视的重要机制。随着家庭收入的上升,价格调整机制的贡献逐渐占据主导,在高收入家庭效用改善中的占比超过70%。本文从家庭消费视角揭示了对冲劳动力成本上涨政策的积极影响,表明其不仅有助于在供给侧扩大企业生产、增加劳动需求,还有利于在需求侧促进家庭消费和改善收入分配。With the gradual disappearance of China's demographic bonus and the acceleration of population aging, firms are facing increasing labor costs. The rise of labor costs has marked dual characteristics: on the one hand, rising labor costs implies the increase of labor income and the improvement of worker welfare;on the other hand, rising labor costs will reduce firms' labor demand, lower equilibrium wage and employment. Moreover, low-income workers are more vulnerable to this negative shock due to their weak bargaining power. At the same time, labor costs will also be passed to consumers through price transmission, further reducing the real income and widening households' consumption gap as a result of the difference in consumption structure. The above mechanism implies that policies to hedge against rising labor costs can effectively alleviate the contradiction among the improvement of employees' welfare, the reduction of enterprises' labor demand and the widening of workers' income gap.Recently, in order to stimulate domestic demand and deepen supply-side reform, China has successively introduced a series of policies aiming to reduce firms' labor costs, such as decreasing the social security contribution base, delaying the payment of social security fees, etc. These policies have proven effective in reducing the business cost of enterprises.However, the impact of these policies on income distribution is basically unknown. Current researches typically focus on nominal income inequality, ignoring the role played by price mechanism. Real income inequality incorporates price differentials, can more accurately reflect difference of household welfare. This study examines the distributional effect of social security contribution reduction policy in offsetting the rising labor cost.This study divides the effect of social security contributions on real income inequality into two parts: nominal income and price adjustment. By combining utility functions and QUAIDS, we find that the reduction in social security contributions

关 键 词：劳动力成本变动 实际收入不平等 家庭消费 

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