The Price of Growth: Consumption Insurance in China 1989-2009

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Santaeulalia-Llopis, Raul; Zheng, Yu
• 署名单位: Autonomous University of Barcelona; Barcelona School of Economics; Autonomous University of Barcelona; City University of Hong Kong
• 刊物名称: AMERICAN ECONOMIC JOURNAL-MACROECONOMICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 1945-7707
• DOI: 10.1257/mac.20160250
• 发表日期: 2018
• 页码: 1-35
• 关键词: urban china; INEQUALITY; income; misallocation; migration; RISK; TECHNOLOGY; savings

摘要

We exploit a novel and unique opportunity to document the transmission of income risk to consumption in a growing economy. Our laboratory is China, an economy that has witnessed enormous and sustained growth. We build a long panel of household-level consumption and income data. We find that consumption insurance deteriorates along the growth process with a transmission of permanent income shocks to consumption that at least triples from 1989 to 2009. Although preliminary, our welfare analysis suggests that the loss of consumption insurance can have first-order implications for the welfare assessment of economic growth.