烟波浩淼
[2012.12.15] Inequality in China 中国的贫富分化
Inequality in China
贫富分化的中国
To each, not according to his needs
按需分配尚未实现
A new survey illuminates the extent of Chine income inequality艾灸涌泉
最新调查揭示中国贫富不均的真实程度
Dec 15th 2012 | HONG KONG | from the print edition
THANKS to apartheid, broken job markets and monopolistic mining, South Africa is one of the most unequal countries in the world. The top 10% of houholds pocketed 58% of the income in 2008, according to rearchers at the University of Cape Town. The country’s Gini coefficient, which measures inequality on a scale of 0 to 1, was 0.7.
种族隔离、就业严峻和矿业垄断使南非成为世界上贫富分化最严重的国家之一。开普敦大学的研究员说，2008年，南非全国58%的财富掌握在金字塔顶端10%的家庭手中。当年该国的基尼系数【注1】达到了0.7。树树皆秋色
But South Africa’s inequality may soon be equalled by an unexpected rival: communist China. According to a new survey, the top tenth of Chine houholds took home 57% of the income in 2010. The country’s Gini coefficient was 0.61, far higher than previous estimates (which ranged from 0.41 to 0.48).
但南非的贫富分化很快可能会被一个颇为让人感到意外的对手追平——共产主义中国。一项最新调查显示，2010年，中国最富裕的10%的家庭占有了全国收入的57%。中国当年的基尼系数攀升至0.61，远远超出之前估计的水平（约为0.41到0.48之间）。
The survey, known as the China Houhold Finance Survey (CHFS), was overen by Gan Li of Texas A&M University and Southwestern University in Chengdu, the capital of S
ichuan province. Modelled on the Federal Rerve’s Survey of Consumer Finances, which covers almost 6,500 American families every three years, the CHFS covers 8,438 houholds in China, excluding Tibet, Xinjiang, Inner Mongolia, Hong Kong and Macau.
这项调查叫做“中国家庭金融调查”（简称CHFS），由美国德州农工大学经济系教授兼西南财经大学经济学院院长甘犁负责。以美联储消费者财务状况调查【注2】为模型，CHFS覆盖了中国8,438个家庭，目前尚未涉及西藏、新疆、内蒙、香港和澳门地区。
领导班子述职报告
红色角落（图表说明：这是一个2010年中国家庭年均可支配收入百分位图。横轴是家庭年均可支配
收入，单位是千元。纵轴表示百分位。从图中可知，25%的家庭年均可支配收入等于或低于5000元，95%的家庭年均可支配收入等于或低于17万元。）
Surveying China’s multitudes is a daunting task. Having randomly lected 320 neighbourhoods to visit, Mr Gan’s team discovered that some had only half as many homes as the official data suggested, others had twice as many. Not everyone was willing to answer questions. The Southwestern students who carried out the interviews, which were done in 2011, had doors shut in their faces and insults hurled in their direction. They were obliged to try each houhold six times before giving up.
由于中国人口众多，调查起来十分困难。甘犁的团队随机选择了320个社区进行走访。走访时他们发现，这些社区的住户数与官方数字有很大的出入。有的社区只有官方统计数字一半的住户，有的却是两倍。而且，并非每个人都愿意回答调查组的问题。2011年，当西南财经大学的学生们每家每户进行走访时，曾被当面摔上门，甚至遭受辱骂。即便如此，他们在每户至少会尝试六次才放弃。
In rural Yunnan province the students travelled high into the mountains, where their questions about financial asts and rates of return were often met with incomprehension. One villager claimed he had no bank deposits. The interviewer assumed he was being evasive—until the villager retrieved a plastic bag with all his cash and began counting it.
在云南郊区，学生们的走访一直深入到高山上的村落。在那里，当被问到金融资产和收益率时，人们常常一脸茫然。一位村民甚至说他根本没有银行存款。调查员们本以为他是在回避什么，直到后来他掏出一个装有他全部现金财产的塑料袋并开始数起钱来，才明白他说的是真的。
和田黄玉Urban respondents were more recalcitrant: in the cities 16.5% of the original sample refud to take part, compared with only 3.2% in the countryside. Even so, the figures compare well with the 30% who refu to take part in the Fed’s survey. Indeed, the stude
nts’ success in reaching houholds may explain why China’s inequality appears so high. Other surveys may miss a greater percentage of the very poor or the very rich.
和农村相比，调查员们在城市遭遇的抵制更多。在城市，原先选定的样本住户中有16.5%拒绝配合，而农村不配合的只有3.2%。尽管如此，与美联储的调查30%的抵制率比起来，这些数据已经相当令人欣慰了。确实，或许正是由于这一次学生们成功做到了深入家家户户，中国贫富差距之大才得以揭示。其他的调查可能遗漏了很大一部分社会最底层和最高层的人群。
学生资助政策The survey confirmed that Chine houholds have rather little debt. Their liabilities amount to less than 5% of their asts, compared with over 16% in America. Remarkably, the combined wealth of China’s houholds (all their asts, minus their debts) came to $69.1 trillion in 2010. That is about 20% more than the net worth of American houholds.
低碳节能
此项调查也证实了中国家庭的确负债较少。他们的债务不到资产的5%，而在美国，这一数字超过16%。还有一组数据相当令人瞩目，2010年，中国所有家庭的净财富（全部资产减去债务）加起来达到了69.1万亿美元，超出美国20%。
【译者注】
1. 基尼系数(Gini Coefficient)为意大利经济学家基尼（Corrado Gini，1884-1965）于1922年提出的，定量测定收入分配差异程度。其值在0和1之间。越接近0就表明收入分配越是趋向平等，反之，收入分配越是趋向不平等。按照国际一般标准，0.4以上的基尼系数表示收入差距较大，当基尼系数达到0.6 时，则表示收入悬殊。
2. 消费者财务状况调查（Survey of Consumer Finances）是美联储对美国家庭的收入、资产、负债情况进行的一项抽样、问卷调查，每三年进行一次，每次调查覆盖约6500个美国家庭。
