Empirical Measurement And Regional Comparative Study Of Inequality Aversion

China’s economy in the past 40 years has made remarkable achievements,significantly improve people’s living standard,but more and more big gap between the income and wealth among groups,China’s gini coefficient increased from 0.249 in 1980 to 0.467 in 2017,suggests that the deterioration of income distribution in our country,in accordance with the general view of welfare economics,the inequality of income distribution will damage the social welfare level.When studying the inequality of income distribution,we should not only measure the objective income gap,but also know people’s subjective aversion to the objective inequality.Atkinson(1970)first proposed the social welfare function of "inequality aversion",which made the relationship between subjective inequality aversion and social welfare explicit,so as to measure the level of inequality aversion from the welfare function.Based on Atkinson’s(1970)model,a large number of domestic and foreign scholars have focused on the empirical measure and application of inequality aversion.In the field of measurement research,there are mainly three kinds of empirical measurement methods: experimental method,backward extrapolation through tax structure,and micro-measurement method.Based on the atkinson social welfare function,the inequality aversion coefficient of Chinese samples is measured by using the microeconomic measurement method of CGSS,CHFS,CLDS and CHIP.The focus of this paper is to measure the real inequality aversion coefficient of a specific time,a specific region and a specific population.In order to achieve this goal,this paper has done the following work:Firstly,this paper explains the basis of welfare economics of inequality aversion,and constructs an econometric model to measure inequality aversion coefficient within the framework of atkinson’s welfare function.Secondly,four sets of micro-survey data were used to measure the inequality aversion coefficient values of each provincial unit(autonomous region and municipality directly under the central government),each region,different demographic characteristics and different income groups in China,and the measurement results were compared and analyzed.Thirdly,this paper also focuses on whether specific social security content will affect the level of inequality aversion in different regions.Therefore,medical insurance and endowment insurance variables are embedded in the basic model,and the inequality aversion coefficient of each subsample is still measured according to regional grouping,and the results are compared and analyzed.The main research conclusions of this paper are as follows: the empirical measurement shows that the inequality aversion coefficient of China as a whole is between 1.09 and 1.32,and the inequality aversion coefficient of most provinces and groups based on demographic characteristics is basically greater than 1.The level of inequality aversion of each province is related to the level of economic development and economic growth of the province.Generally speaking,the province with poor economic development has a higher inequality aversion coefficient,while the province with good economic development,especially the province with fast economic growth,has a lower inequality aversion coefficient.The variation of inequality aversion coefficient also shows a temporal trend,that is,the inequality aversion coefficient increases year by year.The coefficient of inequality aversion is influenced by demographic factors and individual income level.With the increase of income,the coefficient of inequality aversion will decrease.After the introduction of medical insurance and endowment insurance variables,the national inequality aversion coefficient value decreased to between 1.03 and 1.31,the inequality aversion coefficient of most provinces decreased,and the inequality aversion coefficient brought by medical insurance decreased more significantly.Based on the above empirical results,this paper puts forward some Suggestions on how to improve the social welfare level from the aspects of coordinating regional development,establishing a standardized social security system and adjusting the redistribution mechanism.