IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/ecanpo/v86y2025icp76-97.html

The invisible hand of transfer: The income distribution effect of water resource fee to tax

Author

Listed:
  • Yao, Peng
  • Tian, Zhijin
  • Li, Jinze

Abstract

Income distribution is the foundation of equitable people's livelihoods, and improving the income distribution system is a key pathway to achieving common prosperity for all. This paper uses micro-level data from listed companies in China's industrial sector, along with macroeconomic data from 2011 to 2019, to examine the impact of the water resource fee-to-tax reform pilot policy on changes in the labor income share. The study finds that the policy reduces the labor income share through both the factor substitution effect and the strengthening of corporate monopoly power. Heterogeneity analysis indicates that the income distribution effects of the reform are more pronounced in large-scale enterprises, firms with stronger labor bargaining power, labor-intensive industries, and regions experiencing water resource overexploitation. To further clarify the broader economic consequences of the pilot policy, this paper also investigates the impact of the water resource tax reform on human capital structure, regional labor mobility, and intra-firm wage disparities.

Suggested Citation

  • Yao, Peng & Tian, Zhijin & Li, Jinze, 2025. "The invisible hand of transfer: The income distribution effect of water resource fee to tax," Economic Analysis and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 86(C), pages 76-97.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:ecanpo:v:86:y:2025:i:c:p:76-97
    DOI: 10.1016/j.eap.2025.03.025
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0313592625000979
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.eap.2025.03.025?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to

    for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Daron Acemoglu & Pascual Restrepo, 2018. "The Race between Man and Machine: Implications of Technology for Growth, Factor Shares, and Employment," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 108(6), pages 1488-1542, June.
    2. Onil Banerjee, 2015. "Investing in recovering water for the environment in Australia's Murray-Darling Basin," International Journal of Water Resources Development, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 31(4), pages 701-717, December.
    3. Chiara Criscuolo & Ralf Martin & Henry G. Overman & John Van Reenen, 2019. "Some Causal Effects of an Industrial Policy," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 109(1), pages 48-85, January.
    4. Daron Acemoglu, 2010. "When Does Labor Scarcity Encourage Innovation?," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 118(6), pages 1037-1078.
    5. Chen Yeh & Claudia Macaluso & Brad Hershbein, 2022. "Monopsony in the US Labor Market," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 112(7), pages 2099-2138, July.
    6. Jan De Loecker & Jan Eeckhout & Gabriel Unger, 2020. "The Rise of Market Power and the Macroeconomic Implications [“Econometric Tools for Analyzing Market Outcomes”]," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 135(2), pages 561-644.
    7. David Autor & David Dorn & Lawrence F Katz & Christina Patterson & John Van Reenen, 2020. "The Fall of the Labor Share and the Rise of Superstar Firms [“Automation and New Tasks: How Technology Displaces and Reinstates Labor”]," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 135(2), pages 645-709.
    8. José Azar & Xavier Vives, 2021. "Reply to: Comments on “General Equilibrium Oligopoly and Ownership Structure”," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 89(3), pages 1061-1063, May.
    9. Goodman-Bacon, Andrew, 2021. "Difference-in-differences with variation in treatment timing," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 225(2), pages 254-277.
    10. Bauducco, Sofía & Janiak, Alexandre, 2018. "The macroeconomic consequences of raising the minimum wage: Capital accumulation, employment and the wage distribution," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 101(C), pages 57-76.
    11. Berkowitz, Daniel & Lin, Chen & Ma, Yue, 2015. "Do property rights matter? Evidence from a property law enactment," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 116(3), pages 583-593.
    12. Cheng, Rui & Li, Jing & Wu, Ting, 2024. "Competition policy and labor income share: Evidence from the antitrust policy in China," Economic Analysis and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 83(C), pages 966-977.
    13. Mertens, Matthias, 2022. "Micro-mechanisms behind declining labor shares: Rising market power and changing modes of production," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 81(C).
    14. Benguria, Felipe & Choi, Jaerim & Swenson, Deborah L. & Xu, Mingzhi (Jimmy), 2022. "Anxiety or pain? The impact of tariffs and uncertainty on Chinese firms in the trade war," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 137(C).
    15. Li, Xin & Liu, Zhaoda & Ye, Yongwei, 2024. "Public data and corporate employment: Evidence from the launch of Chinese public data platform," Economic Analysis and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 84(C), pages 124-144.
    16. José Azar & Xavier Vives, 2021. "General Equilibrium Oligopoly and Ownership Structure," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 89(3), pages 999-1048, May.
    17. Thorsten Beck & Ross Levine & Alexey Levkov, 2010. "Big Bad Banks? The Winners and Losers from Bank Deregulation in the United States," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 65(5), pages 1637-1667, October.
    18. Callaway, Brantly & Sant’Anna, Pedro H.C., 2021. "Difference-in-Differences with multiple time periods," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 225(2), pages 200-230.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Mertens, Matthias, 2023. "Labor Market Power and Between-Firm Wage (In)Equality," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 91(C).
    2. Crescioli, Tommaso & Martelli, Angelo, 2022. "Beyond the Great Reversal: Superstars, Unions, and the Euro," Single Market Economics Papers WP2022/8, Directorate-General for Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship and SMEs (European Commission), Chief Economist Team.
    3. S. Nobili, 2024. "Concentration, Market Power and International Tax Competition," Working Paper CRENoS 202406, Centre for North South Economic Research, University of Cagliari and Sassari, Sardinia.
    4. Kosuke Aoki & Yoshihiko Hogen & Kosuke Takatomi, 2023. "Price Markups and Wage Setting Behavior of Japanese Firms," Bank of Japan Working Paper Series 23-E-5, Bank of Japan.
    5. Jingyi Tian & Jun Nagayasu, 2023. "Financial Systemic Risk behind Artificial Intelligence:Evidence from China," TUPD Discussion Papers 44, Graduate School of Economics and Management, Tohoku University.
    6. Crescioli, Tommaso, 2024. "Reinforcing each other: How the combination of European and domestic reforms increased competition in liberalized industries," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 83(C).
    7. Xu, Yuanbin & Wei, Yuan & Zeng, Xin & Yu, Haiqing & Chen, Hongjie, 2024. "Big data development and labor income share: Evidence from China's national big data comprehensive pilot zones," Economic Analysis and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 84(C), pages 1415-1437.
    8. Fabrizio Leone, 2023. "Multinationals, robots and the labor share," CEP Discussion Papers dp1900, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.
    9. Kosuke Aoki & Yoshihiko Hogen & Yojiro Ito & Kenji Kanai & Kosuke Takatomi, 2024. "Determinants of Price Markups at Japanese Firms and Implications for Productivity," Bank of Japan Working Paper Series 24-E-15, Bank of Japan.
    10. Yang, Guang-Zhao & Si, Deng-Kui, 2025. "The impact of VAT input tax refund policy on firms’ labor income share: Evidence from China," Economic Analysis and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 86(C), pages 2233-2246.
    11. Xu, Yang & Huang, Wei & Zhang, Cherry Yi, 2024. "Navigating international competition with ESG: Insights from the US-China trade war," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 70(PB).
    12. Martinez Cillero Maria & Napolitano Lorenzo & Rentocchini Francesco & Seri Cecilia & Zaurino Elena, 2025. "M&As, Innovation and Superstar Firms," JRC Working Papers on Corporate R&D and Innovation 2025-03, Joint Research Centre.
    13. Ansgar F. Quint & Jonas F. Rudsinske, 2024. "Asymmetric general oligopolistic equilibrium," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 47(3), pages 1167-1190, March.
    14. Changteng Nie & Jianxiang Wan, 2023. "How Does Internet Infrastructure Construction Affect the Urban–Rural Income Gap? Evidence from a Quasi-Natural Experiment in China," Progress in Development Studies, , vol. 23(3), pages 317-337, July.
    15. Matteo G. Richiardi & Luis Valenzuela, 2024. "Firm heterogeneity and the aggregate labour share," LABOUR, CEIS, vol. 38(1), pages 66-101, March.
    16. Gibbon, Alexandra J. & Schain, Jan Philip, 2023. "Rising markups, common ownership, and technological capacities," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 89(C).
    17. Casacuberta, Carlos & Gandelman, Néstor, 2023. "Wage councils, product markups and wage markdowns: Evidence from Uruguay," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 87(C).
    18. Campos, Nauro F. & De Grauwe, Paul & Ji, Yuemei, 2025. "Structural reforms and economic performance: the experience of advanced economies," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 120870, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    19. Amiti, Mary & Duprez, Cédric & Konings, Jozef & Van Reenen, John, 2024. "FDI and superstar spillovers: Evidence from firm-to-firm transactions," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 152(C).
    20. Ichev, Riste & Valentinčič, Aljoša, 2025. "The effect of impact investing on performance of private firms," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 73(PA).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • J21 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Labor Force and Employment, Size, and Structure
    • J68 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers - - - Public Policy
    • H22 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - Incidence
    • M51 - Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting; Personnel Economics - - Personnel Economics - - - Firm Employment Decisions; Promotions

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:ecanpo:v:86:y:2025:i:c:p:76-97. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.journals.elsevier.com/economic-analysis-and-policy .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.