Can government investment expansion benefit everyone: a study with state-owned enterprises in the Chinese context

Abstract

ABSTRACT The main difference between China and other major economies is the presence of a large number of state-owned enterprises. Focusing on the Chinese context, we divide firms into state-owned and private enterprises, and households into working and capitalist class; thereafter, we simulate the effects of government investment expansion on income distribution under different financing instruments. We found that when financed by corporate income tax or value-added tax, government investment expansion makes the working class in both types of enterprises better off, but the capitalist class worse off; however, when financed by labour income tax, government investment expansion yields the opposite result. When the expansion is financed by government debt, the real wealth of the working class in state-owned enterprises and the capitalist class increases, but that of the working class in private enterprises decreases. The difference in income distribution outcomes between the working class and capitalist class is due to the differing composition of their wealth, and the difference in income distribution outcomes among working class is because the enterprises for which they work perform differently in undertaking government investment projects and obtaining loans from the financial market.