The Theoretical And Empirical Research Into The Influence Of Political Capital On Income Distribution

Political capital is an important subject explored by sociology and economics andrefers to the institutionalized social capital. That is, personal political capital will bringnobility, power, resources and, furthermore, deterrence and influence provided by thepolitical party, the regime and the ideology. And usually this also is reflected oneconomic superiority. These years, with the deep-going process of marketization andmore unfair income distribution, more people care about the influence of politicalcapital on the unfairness of income distribution. Usually people hold the mind that, theindustries, enterprises or persons with political power still occupy the top level ofsociety, own relatively more chances of resources assignment and receive higherincome in social economy. Because people often focus more on unfairness than scarcity,the unfairness of income distribution resulting from political capital will inducediscontent more easily and leave a negative effect on economy development. Peoplehope that constraint for political capital can be merged into the income distributionreform bill. Therefore researches on this topic is necessary.We take the data in China Household Finance Survey (CHFS) in2011as the base andchoose party member identity, level of position and the enterprise type as variablesmeasuring political capital. Using the quantile regression method we explored andchecked the following two questions.1) What effect does political capital has onpersonal income;2) How the profit of political capital will develop a s marketizationget deep;3) Does political capital really result in income gap? We find that, withrelevant variables controlled, having a party member identity, superior career positionand working in a state-owned enterprise or institution will raise personal income. Andwith the deep-going marketization, this effect hasn’t been weakened but augmented. Inthe income distribution, party member identity and superior career position repay moreat high quantile and repay less at low quantile, which enlarges the income gap whilethe enterprise type has opposite effect and shortens the income gap. Finally we giveour conclusion: political capital raises the income level, but enlarges the income gapat the same time. Also its derivative effect on unfairness of i ncome distribution hasn’tbeen weakened but augmented by the process of marketization.