 A Tale of Transition: An Empirical Analysis of Economic Inequality in Urban China, 1986–2009Haiyan Ding and Hui He () No 2016/239, IMF Working Papers from International Monetary Fund Abstract: This paper is the first comprehensive empirical study of earnings, income, and consumption inequality in urban China from 1986 to 2009, using unique micro-level data from the Urban Household Survey (UHS). The paper documents a drastic increase in economic inequality for the sample period. The paper finds that consumption inequality closely tracks income inequality, both over time and over the life cycle. The paper believes that the main driver of this co-movement could be a dramatic increase in noninsurable idiosyncratic permanent income shocks after the early 1990s, associated with the economic transition in urban China. Keywords: WP; consumption inequality; income shock; income variance; Inequality over time and life-cycle; Income dynamics; Chinese economy; Structural transformation; income inequality; nondurable consumption; Income inequality; Income shocks; Income; Consumption; Disposable income (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:imf:imfwpa:2016/239 Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from Access Statistics for this paper More papers in IMF Working Papers from International Monetary Fund International Monetary Fund, Washington, DC USA. Contact information at EDIRC. |
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