Government spending and intergenerational income mobility: Evidence from China

Xiao Huang, Shoujun Huang and Ailun Shui

Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 2021, vol. 191, issue C, 387-414

Abstract: By providing public service for equity and reducing the investment gap between rich and poor children, government spending plays a crucial role in intergenerational income mobility. With the China Health and Nutrition Survey data from 1989 to 2015, this paper assessed the relationship between government spending and intergenerational income mobility in China. First, we found that there was greater intergenerational mobility in high-spending provinces compared with low-spending provinces. Second, children with high per-capita government spending were more likely to experience upward mobility; this effect was twice as common in urban areas compared with rural areas. Third, government spending exerted influence on intergenerational income mobility through the mediation of education expansion. Higher government spending, which brought better quality in primary and secondary education, benefited poorer families more. In underdeveloped provinces, especially rural areas, government spending aimed at equal distribution of public services may provide more opportunities for the poor and lead to greater intergenerational income mobility in the future. Finally, the robustness checks that supported changing how income was measured or how government spending occurred did nothing to change our findings.

Keywords: Intergenerational income mobility; Government spending; Education; China (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (36)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S016726812100384X
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:jeborg:v:191:y:2021:i:c:p:387-414

DOI: 10.1016/j.jebo.2021.09.005

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization is currently edited by Houser, D. and Puzzello, D.

More articles in Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().