关键词: 中国式分权, 居民收入不平等, 转移支付, 面板门限回归模型

Abstract: This paper first re-measures the degree of income inequality among urban residents, rural residents and the overall residents by using the Gini coefficient, and then chooses the intergovernmental fiscal transfer payment as the threshold variable to construct a panel threshold regressive model for the empirical research of the impact of the Chinese-style fiscal decentralization on residents' income inequality. The results are as follows. Firstly, the relationship between fiscal revenue decentralization and the income inequality is always negative while the relationship between fiscal expenditure decentralization and the income inequality is significantly positive. Secondly, there is a great difference with regard to the impacts of fiscal decentralization on various kinds of income inequality. Moreover, be it fiscal revenue decentralization or fiscal expenditure decentralization, the policy effects on income inequality demonstrate a descending order of urban residents, rural residents and the overall residents. Last but not least, the effect of government transfer payment on income inequality shows a nonlinear feature in different regimes. The impact on residents' income inequality significantly alters from negative effect into positive effect when government transfer payment switches to the second regime from the first regime. This paper not only helps to construct a new fiscal relation between central and local governments, but also provides a theoretical basis and policy-making reference for a fairer income redistribution.

Key words: Chinese Decentralization, Residents' Income Inequality, Transfer Payments, Panel Threshold Regressive Model