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Getting an accurate picture of poverty and inequality trends and patterns in the world's most populous country is central to understanding changes in global inequality and poverty - these alter significantly when China is included or excluded. China's future performance is obviously central to the...
Policy Brief
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– 仅有高经济增长够吗?
The slowdown and in some years reversal of poverty reduction in China forcefully demonstrates that growth is not sufficient for combating poverty even if that growth is of unprecedented magnitude. Policy initiatives should take into consideration inequality, especially urban-rural disparity. This...
Policy Brief
pdf
– Is High Growth Enough?
The slowdown and in some years reversal of poverty reduction in China forcefully demonstrates that growth is not sufficient for combating poverty even if that growth is of unprecedented magnitude. Policy initiatives should take into consideration inequality, especially urban-rural disparity. This...
This volume provides comprehensive updated coverage of inequality and poverty issues in China. Some of the methodologies developed herein are published for the first time and may be used in other contexts and for other countries. The use of different data sources and state-of-art research techniques...
From the book:
Understanding Inequality and Poverty in China
– Methods and Applications
The ongoing campaign of 'western development' launched in 1999 and the recent Chinese government initiative of 'building a harmonious society' highlight the urgency and significance of analysing inequality and poverty. Prominent contributors from China and around the world explore trends of...
Journal Article
This peer-reviewed research is available free of charge. UNU-WIDER believes that research is a global public good and supports Open Access.
Part of Journal Special Issue
Inequality and Poverty in China
Getting an accurate picture of poverty and inequality trends and patterns in the world’s most populous country is central to understanding changes in global inequality and poverty – these alter significantly when China is included or excluded. China’s future performance is obviously central to the...
Working Paper
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– 1987-2001
The financial intermediation-growth nexus is a widely studied topic in the literature of development economics. Deepening financial intermediation may promote economic growth by mobilizing more investments, and lifting returns to financial resources, which raises productivity. Relying on provincial...
Working Paper
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– A Regression-based Decomposition Approach
This paper proposes a decomposition framework for quantifying contributions of the determinants of poverty to spatial differences or temporal changes in poverty. This framework is then applied to address the issue why poverty incidence is higher in inland than in coastal China. The empirical...
Working Paper
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– Trends, Causes and Policy Implications
This paper depicts the trend of regional inequality in rural China for the period 1985-2002. The total inequality is decomposed into the so-called within- and between-components when China is divided into three regional belts (east, central and west). A regression-based accounting framework is then...
Getting an accurate picture of poverty and inequality trends and patterns in the world's most populous country is central to understanding changes in global inequality and poverty – these alter significantly when China is included or excluded. China's future performance is obviously central to the...
Working Paper
pdf
– A Decomposition Framework with Application to China
This paper proposes a framework for incorporating longitudinal distributional changes into poverty decomposition. It is shown that changes in the Sen-Shorrocks-Thon index over time can be decomposed into two components—one component reflects the progressivity of income growth among the original poor...
Working Paper
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Relying on a recently developed decomposition framework, this paper explores spatial distribution of innovation capability in China. It is found that at the regional level, China's inequality in innovation capability increased from 1995 to 2004. At the provincial level, the inequality decreased from...
Working Paper
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– Trends and Causes
Applying the Shapley decomposition to unit-record household survey data, this paper investigates the trends and causes of poverty in China in the 1990s. The changes in poverty trends are attributed to two proximate causes; income growth and shifts in relative income distribution. The Foster-Greer...
Working Paper
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This paper describes and decomposes wage differences between female and male workers. The results indicate that females receive low wages because of unequal pay within sectors, and that the wage gap caused by the difference in sectoral attainment is small. The results also reveal that a lion’s share...
Working Paper
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– Empirical Evidence from Within China
China’s recent accession to the WTO is expected to accelerate its integration into the world economy, which aggravates concerns over the impact of globalization on the already rising inter-regional income inequality in China. This paper discusses China’s globalization process and estimates an income...
Working Paper
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Gender earnings differentials in urban China by region and their changes during the first decade of economic reform are examined. It is found that the female–male earnings ratio increased during the early stage of reform. The male earnings premium, overall, showed an increasing trend in the later...
Working Paper
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Using new household survey data for 1995 and 2002, we investigate the size of China’s urban-rural income gap, the gap’s contribution to overall inequality in China, and the factors underlying the gap. Our analysis improves on past estimates by using a fuller measure of income, adjusting for spatial...
Working Paper
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There are two main types of data sources of income distributions in China: household survey data and grouped data. Household survey data are typically available for isolated years and individual provinces. In comparison, aggregate or grouped data are typically available more frequently and usually...
Working Paper
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Food price increases and the introduction of radical social welfare and enterprise reforms during the 1990s generated significant changes in the lives of urban households in China. During this period urban poverty increased considerably. This paper uses household level data from 1986 to 2000 to...
Working Paper
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This paper argues that the regional income gap of China is endogenously determined by its long-term economic development strategy. Development strategies can be broadly divided into two mutually exclusive groups: (i) the comparative advantage-defying (CAD) strategy, which attempts to encourage firms...
Working Paper
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This paper explores the forces that shaped China’s interprovincial inequality in the last five decades of communist rule. In so far as the change in interprovincial inequality is the result of differential growth in the provincial GDP per capita and provincial economic growth may be decomposed into...
Working Paper
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– The Impact of Educational Attainment on Local Growth and Disparities
This paper analyses the impact of different levels of educational attainment on local growth and economic disparities in China. By applying decomposition analysis and quantile regression techniques to a set of sub-provincial level regional data, special emphasis is put on identifying and...
Working Paper
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While the average level of income per capita has increased in China rapidly, income inequality is becoming a more serious problem that may threaten social stability and the sustainability of economic development. This paper examines the existence in China of an inverted U-shaped curve for income...
Working Paper
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This article evaluates the Chinese labour market by examining the role of human capital in wage determination. Using data from China’s Household Nutrition Survey, we estimate the returns to education in state-owned, collective-owned and private sectors. In the private sectors, the returns to...
Working Paper
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– Determinants and Impact on Income Inequality in 1988 and 2002
This study provides the first set of empirical evidence on the determinants of social benefits received by urban families in China and the impact on income inequality using the China Household Income Project (CHIP) 1988 and 2002 data. It finds that the total urban social benefits strongly targeted...
Working Paper
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– The Case of China
How do foreign trade and foreign direct investment affect regional inequality? Foreign trade and investment may affect internal economic geography, and the resulting industry agglomeration may contribute to regional inequality. This paper provides empirical evidence supporting this linkage. The...
Working Paper
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Financial development can exert a significant influence on the distribution of income. In this paper, using Chinese provincial data over the period of 1991-2000 and applying the generalized method of moment (GMM) techniques, we investigate the relationship between finance and inequality in rural...
Working Paper
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This paper analyzes the evolution of poverty in China from the late 1980s to the late 1990s, employing a version of Shapley decomposition tailored to unit-record household survey data. The changes in poverty trends are attributed to two proximate causes— income growth and shifts in income...
Working Paper
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– Implications for Growth and Inequality
China’s current fiscal system is largely decentralized while its governance structure is rather centralized with strong top-down mandates and a homogenous governance structure. Due to large differences in initial economic structures and revenue bases, the implicit tax rate and fiscal burdens to...
Displaying 32 of 44 results