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China's Income Distribution, 1985-2001

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  • Wu, Ximing
  • Perloff, Jeffrey M.

Abstract

We employ a new method to estimate China's income distributions using publicly available interval summary statistics. We examine rural, urban and overall income distributions from 1985-2001. We show how the distributions change directly as well as examine trends in equality. Using an inter-temporal decomposition of aggregate inequality, we determine that increases in inequality within rural and urban sectors and the growing rural-urban income gap have been equally responsible for the growth in overall inequality over the last two decades. However, the rural-urban gap has played an increasingly important role in recent years. We also show that urban consumption inequality rose considerably.

Suggested Citation

  • Wu, Ximing & Perloff, Jeffrey M., 2005. "China's Income Distribution, 1985-2001," Institute for Research on Labor and Employment, Working Paper Series qt0zd6m0sf, Institute of Industrial Relations, UC Berkeley.
  • Handle: RePEc:cdl:indrel:qt0zd6m0sf
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    Cited by:

    1. Gordon Anderson & Tongtong Hao & Maria Grazia Pittau, 2016. "Income Inequality, Family Formation and Generational Mobility in Urban China," Working Papers tecipa-563, University of Toronto, Department of Economics.
    2. Guido Cozzi & Fabio Privileggi, 2009. "The fractal nature of inequality in a fast growing world: new version," Working Papers 2009_30, Business School - Economics, University of Glasgow.
    3. Gholamreza Hajargasht & William E. Griffiths & Joseph Brice & D.S. Prasada Rao & Duangkamon Chotikapanich, 2012. "Inference for Income Distributions Using Grouped Data," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 30(4), pages 563-575, May.
    4. Henderson, Daniel J. & Tochkov, Kiril & Badunenko, Oleg, 2007. "A drive up the capital coast? Contributions to post-reform growth across Chinese provinces," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 29(3), pages 569-594, September.
    5. Ximing Wu & Andreas Savvides & Thanasis Stengos, 2008. "The Global Joint Distribution of Income and Health," Working Paper series 25_08, Rimini Centre for Economic Analysis.
    6. Molero-Simarro, Ricardo, 2017. "Inequality in China revisited. The effect of functional distribution of income on urban top incomes, the urban-rural gap and the Gini index, 1978–2015," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 42(C), pages 101-117.
    7. Jin, Hailong & Qian, Hang & Wang, Tong & Choi, E. Kwan, 2014. "Income distribution in urban China: An overlooked data inconsistency issue," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 30(C), pages 383-396.
    8. Qu, Zhaopeng (Frank) & Zhao, Zhong, 2008. "Urban-Rural Consumption Inequality in China from 1988 to 2002: Evidence from Quantile Regression Decomposition," IZA Discussion Papers 3659, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    9. Yi Chen & Frank A. Cowell, 2017. "Mobility in China," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 63(2), pages 203-218, June.
    10. Anderson, Gordon & Farcomeni, Alessio & Pittau, Maria Grazia & Zelli, Roberto, 2016. "A new approach to measuring and studying the characteristics of class membership: Examining poverty, inequality and polarization in urban China," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 191(2), pages 348-359.
    11. Gao, Li, 2015. "Evolution of consumption distribution and model of wealth distribution in China between 1995 and 2012," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 429(C), pages 76-86.
    12. Lars Osberg & Jiaping Shao & Kuan Xu, 2009. "The growth of poor children in China 1991–2000: why food subsidies may matter," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 18(S1), pages 89-108, April.
    13. Arslan Razmi, 2008. "Is the Chinese Investment- and Export-Led Growth Model Sustainable? Some Rising Concerns," UMASS Amherst Economics Working Papers 2008-09, University of Massachusetts Amherst, Department of Economics.
    14. Gholamreza Hajargsht & William E. Griffiths & Joseph Brice & D.S. Prasada Rao & Duangkamon Chotikapanich, 2011. "GMM Estimation of Income Distributions from Grouped Data," Department of Economics - Working Papers Series 1129, The University of Melbourne.
    15. Jin, Yanhong & Fan, Maoyong & Cheng, Mingwang & Shi, Qinghua, 2014. "The economic gains of cadre status in rural China: Investigating effects and mechanisms," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 31(C), pages 185-200.
    16. Chen, Yaqing & Dawson, Matthew & Müller, Hans-Georg, 2020. "Rank dynamics for functional data," Computational Statistics & Data Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 149(C).
    17. Wenkai Sun & Xianghong Wang & Xiaoxi Zhang, 2015. "Minimum wage effects on employment and working time of Chinese workers——evidence based on CHNS," IZA Journal of Labor & Development, Springer;Forschungsinstitut zur Zukunft der Arbeit GmbH (IZA), vol. 4(1), pages 1-22, December.
    18. Hou, Xiaohui & Coyne, Joseph, 2008. "The emergence of proprietary medical facilities in China," Health Policy, Elsevier, vol. 88(1), pages 141-151, October.
    19. H. Christoph Steinhardt & Jan Delhey, 2020. "Socio-Economic Modernization and the “Crisis of Trust” in China: A Multi-level Analysis of General and Particular Trust," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 152(3), pages 923-949, December.
    20. Cao, Jing & Ho, Mun Sing & Li, Yating & Newell, Richard G. & Pizer, William A., 2019. "Chinese residential electricity consumption: Estimation and forecast using micro-data," Resource and Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 56(C), pages 6-27.
    21. Ivana Malá, 2013. "Použití konečných směsí logaritmicko-normálních rozdělení pro modelování příjmů českých domácností [The Use of Finite Mixtures of Lognormal Distribution for the Modelling of Household Income Distri," Politická ekonomie, Prague University of Economics and Business, vol. 2013(3), pages 356-372.

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