【目的】恢复生态系统和改善农户生计是实施退耕还林工程的两大核心目标,作为世界上财政投入最大、涉及农村人口最多的生态恢复工程之一,不同农户可否平等地分享实施退耕还林工程所带来的收益是迫切需要解决的问题。【方法】利用包括6省区、15县市的952个样本农户的1995—2016年的长期大样本平衡面板数据,基于持久收入假说和心理账户理论,采用递归方程模型测度与分解退耕还林工程对样本农户收入和消费不平等的影响。【结果】通过改变样本农户以土地为基础及非农持久收入和暂时收入研究表明,实施退耕还林工程拉大了样本农户的收入和消费不平等程度,对收入不平等的影响高于对消费不平等的影响,两者均呈先升后降的趋势;退耕还林工程对以土地为基础的和非农持久收入影响拉大了样本农户的收入不平等,对以土地为基础的暂时收入的影响有助于实现样本农户的收入平等,退耕还林工程对样本农户收入不平等的影响仅部分传导为对其消费不平等的影响,对以土地为基础的持久收入影响是拉大样本农户消费不平等的主要因素;退耕还林工程缩小了长江流域样本农户的收入不平等,对消费不平等的影响甚微,同时拉大了黄河流域样本农户的收入和消费不平等。【结论】实施退耕还林工程拉大了样本农户的收入与消费不平等,因此,在后续政策设计中,应充分重视这一重要影响,适当调整相关政策,促进农户收入和消费平等。

【Objective】 In 1999 the Chinese government launched the Sloping Land Conversion Program (SLCP). Two key objectives of the SLCP are ecosystem and improving rural household livelihoods. The SLCP has the largest government financial input and the most rural households enrolled in the world. The central government provides subsidies to rural households, who convert their sloping land to forestland. Because the eligibility of rural households to participate and their capacity for production following participation varies, it is not known whether different rural households are equally involved in this program. This is an important policy issue to clarify. The existing literature focuses on the impact of the SLCP on the income inequality of rural households. Owing to the lack of further decomposition on the impact of the SLCP and its pathways, existing research cannot answer how the SLCP impacts the income inequality of rural households, and few studies focus on the impact of the SLCP on consumption inequality in rural households. 【Method】 Through eight consecutive surveys, we established a unique panel database of 952 rural households in 15 counties in six provinces covering north, east, south, southwest and northwest China from 1995 to 2016. Using this database and a recursive equations model, this study estimated the impact of the SLCP on the income and consumption of rural households, and measured the contribution of the SLCP to income and consumption inequality in the sample households. The academic contributions of this study are as follows: it is probably the first to estimate the impact of the SLCP on consumption inequality of rural households, which accurately reflects the real livelihood differences between rural households. Based on the framework of the persistent income hypothesis and the full consideration of the impact of psychological accounts on consumption behavior, we also decomposed the impact of the SLCP on rural household income and consumption inequality. We discovered the key impact pathway by which the SLCP affects the income and consumption inequality in rural households. 【Result】 The SLCP increased the land-based permanent income, and off-farm permanent and transitory income of households, but decreased the land-based transitory income. The SLCP increased the income and consumption inequality of rural households by changing their land-based and off-farm permanent income and transitory income. The consumption smoothing mechanism and the law of marginal propensity to consume decreased, making the impact of the SLCP on income inequality higher than that on the consumption inequality. The contribution rate of the SLCP to the income Gini coefficient gradually increased from 0.10% in 1999 to 1.45% in 2003. After 2003, the contribution rate gradually decreased, and the contribution rate in 2016 was 0.98%. The contribution rate of the SLCP to the consumption Gini coefficient gradually increased from 0.06% in 1999 to 1.09% in 2007. After 2007, the contribution rate gradually decreased, and the contribution rate in 2016 was 0.86%. The impact of the SLCP on land-based and off-farm permanent incomes extended the income inequality of rural households, and the impact of the SLCP on land-based transitory income narrowed their income disparity. The contribution rate of the land-based transitory income changed from the SLCP to the income Gini remained around -0.9% since 2007. The impact of the SLCP on income inequality partially transmitted to the inequality in consumption, and the impact of the SLCP on land-based permanent income is the key source of growth in consumption inequality. Owing to the low marginal propensity to consume, the impact of transitory income changed from the SLCP on income inequality has little effect on consumption inequality. Because of the different policies of the SLCP and different social and economic development levels, the SLCP in the Yangtze River Basin narrowed the income inequality of rural households by 0.85%-0.95% since 2007 and has had almost no impact on the consumption inequality in the sample rural households. In the Yellow River Basin, the SLCP widened the income and consumption inequality in the sample rural households. 【Conclusion】 Overall, the SLCP increased the income and consumption of rural households. At the same time, the SLCP widened the income and consumption inequality of rural households. In the Yangtze River Basin and the Yellow River Basin, the impact of the SLCP on the income and consumption inequality in sample rural household was different. Therefore, when designing new policy, government attention should be focused on the impact of inequality and its pathway in rural households. To account for differences in regional impacts, the policies of the SLCP should be adjusted to promote income and consumption equality appropriately.