Decomposition of the increase in earnings inequality in urban China: A distributional approach

This study examines changes in Chinese urban income distribution from 1987 to 1996 and 1996 to 2004 using nationwide household data and investigates the causes of these changes. The Firpo, Fortin, and Lemieux (2007, 2009) method based on unconditional quantile regressions is used to decompose changes in income distribution and income inequality measures, such as variance and a 10:90 ratio. The decomposition results show that wage structure effects, such as a widening gender earnings gap, increases in returns to college education, and increases in earnings differentials between industries, company ownership types, and regions, have been the major contributors to the overall increases in income inequality. It was also found that at different points on the income distribution (e.g., the lower or upper half), the contributing factors that increase income inequality are different.     

城镇居民收入差距的形成与趋势

对我国城镇居民收入差距形成的分析表明,第一产业增加值、失业率等是影响我国城镇居民收入的显著因素。并且,从这些因素的变动趋势判断,我国城镇居民收入差距仍将会进一步扩大。因此,扩大就业渠道、大力普及教育、深化分配制度、完善社会保障体系等是控制我国城镇居民收入差距扩大的有效措施。     

Superior female education: Explaining the gender earnings gap trend in Thailand

It is well-known that along with Thailand's remarkable increase in real income per capita during 1985–2005, an increase in overall income inequality was observed. What is not documented in the literature is that, during the same time period, the gender earnings inequality declined considerably. This paper seeks to identify the main factors that contributed to the decline in gender earnings gap in Thailand's wage and salary sector during 1985–2005. A parametric methodology, the Neumark (1988) version of the Blinder–Oaxaca (1973) method, is implemented in order to decompose gender earnings gap. I also make a methodological contribution by proposing a way to modify the DiNardo–Fortin–Lemieux (1996) nonparametric decomposition method so that its results are comparable to those from the Neumark version of the Blinder–Oaxaca method. The key findings of this paper are as follows. First, I find that increases in female education and changes in unobserved factors, which were concurrent with modernization, were the main sources of the decline in gender earnings gap. Second, over time, improvements in the education of females in this sector surpassed that of males. However, the superior education of females did not result in females earning higher than males due to the existing counteracting effect of the unexplained factors. Finally, the nonparametric investigation corroborated the results from the parametric methodology.     

外商直接投资与中国的收入不平等——一个基于中国东部省区面板数据的研究

采用中国东部地区 11 省市 1990～2008 的平衡面板数据,文章研究了外商直接投资对地区居民收入不平等的影响,文章的结果表明,中国东部地区外商直接投资与地区收入不平等呈现显著的非线性关系,随着 FDI 存量的增加,居民收入差距呈现先上升后下降的倒 U 型趋势.文章的结果同时显示,地区经济发展水平、地区开放程度显著...     

初次分配对城乡收入差距影响的实证分析

本文运用经济计量方法,利用2000~2009年间的数据,对城乡人均初次分配收入差距与城乡人均收入差距之间的关系进行实证分析,建立了相应的回归模型,并进行了Granger因果关系检验。研究结果表明:城乡初次分配收入差距与城乡收入差距之间存在密切的关系,城乡初次分配收入差距对城乡收入差距具有推进的作用,意味着初次分配收入差距的扩大必然会促进城乡收入差距的进一步扩大。在对初次分配收入要素进行分析的基础上,本文给出了相应的政策建议。     

人口老龄化对城乡收入不平等的影响效应研究——基于中国二元经济结构演变的视角

理论分析表明,二元经济结构下人口老龄化能够通过要素禀赋结构调整和社会福利改善对城乡居民收入产生不同的收入效应和替代效应,进而影响城乡收入不平等。利用中国2000-2014年省际面板数据进行实证检验发现：中国人口老龄化显著的扩大了城乡收入不平等,但要素禀赋结构和社会福利水平对老龄化条件下的城乡收入不平等影响效应不同;随着对老年人口供养负担的加重,社会福利支出对老龄化条件下的城乡收入不平等主要表现为替代效应,城市偏向的社会福利支出使得农村因照料老人引起的劳动力供给减少扩大了城乡收入不平等;而要素禀赋结构的转变则使得老龄化主要表现为收入效应,劳动力相对资本的稀缺性导致转移劳动力工资上涨,从而缩小了城乡收入不平等;随着老龄化深化,通过社会福利改善和要素禀赋结构调整能够有效抵消老龄化对城乡收入不平等的负面影响;研究也证实了二元经济结构的优化和农业规模化经营对城乡收入不平等的缩小作用,而失业率上升和城乡投资差距却会加剧城乡收入不平等。     

Basic education and income inequality in Brazil

This paper attempts to elucidate the long-term impact of basic education on income inequality in Brazil. It does so, first, by examining how investment in basic education affects incomes and, second, by assessing the extent to which government involvement in the financing of education services and the taxing of the returns of education investment contributes to the achievement of a more equitable distribution of income.On the basis of the empirical evidence available in Brazil, it is possible to suggest that: (i) education per se cannot significantly reduce inequality, (ii) government policies in terms of education subsidies and taxes on lifetime earnings do not show a clear redistribution pattern, and (iii) there exist effective policy tools in the area of employment, education wastage, cost recovery practices which could help bridge the gap between rates of return to education and reduce income inequality.     

Danish agricultural history ofthe 1920s

The aim of the paper is to qualify the meaning of an urban–rural wage gap by taking a household approach to the issue of standard of living, using household surveys for five worker groups in urban or rural Sweden in 1914/1920. The urban–rural gap in terms of total household real earnings is estimated by including all the household income and using controls for household size and composition, deflated by separate urban and rural costs-of-living indices. To further assess the results, levels of household expenditure and the nutritional value of food are compared between the worker groups. The results indicate that the urban–rural earnings gaps were small or moderate, due to the higher cost of living in urban areas and the practice of payments in kind and home production in rural areas. Some differences between urban and rural workers in terms of patterns of consumption and the nutritional value of food consumed can be attributed to differences in earnings, but a substantial part depended on the nature of the working loads, employment terms and housing conditions. These results thus modify the picture usually given in the literature on urban–rural wage gaps and income elasticity of food items.     

Could a Resource Export Boom Reduce Workers’ Earnings? The Labour-Market Channel in Indonesia

For a decade from 2000, Indonesia underwent a natural-resource export boom. Aggregate income rose, but real labour earnings stagnated. Employment rose, too, but mainly in low-skill sectors with predominantly informal employment arrangements. In this article, we reveal causal connections from the aggregate phenomenon of Dutch disease to these labour-market outcomes. We first explain broad sectoral trends, and then, integrating data from several national surveys, investigate sources of variation in boom-era labour earnings. We use instrumental variables to address issues of endogeneity and selection in earnings equations. After controlling for individual and district features, we find that the intensity of palm oil production—palm oil having been a key booming resource export—robustly predicts diminished formal employment, and that lower formality, in turn, robustly predicts lower earnings. Our findings establish causal linkages absent from prior studies, and so provide a structural dimension to ongoing debates over persistent poverty, rising inequality, and the lack of educational progress in Indonesia.     

非农就业机会不平等对地区间农村收入差距的影响分析

文章通过建立农村收入模型，分析了东、中、西部地区间的农村收入差距。分析结果表明，农村地区间的工资性收入差距是构成农村收入差距的重要因素。区域间农村工业化发展水平和城市非农部门发展水平差异所造成的非农就业机会的不平等，以及农民在获得非农就业机会能力上的差异是导致地区间农村工资性收入差距的主要原因。     

Inequality of Opportunity in China's Labor Earnings: The Gender Dimension

This paper investigates the inequality of opportunity in China's labor earnings, defined as the component of inequality determined by personal circumstances that lie beyond the control of an individual, of which gender is one, as opposed to the component determined by personal efforts. Using the Survey of Women's Social Status in China (2010), we measure the share of inequality of opportunity in the total inequality of individual labor earnings for people aged 26–55 years, and separately for six birth cohorts and for female and male subsamples. Gender is revealed as the single most important circumstance determining nationwide individual labor earnings, with one's region of residence, father's occupation, father's education, birth cohort and holding rural or urban hukou also playing significant roles. A further investigation into the roles of circumstances and personal efforts (including education level, occupation, Communist Party membership, migration and marital status) confirms that circumstances play an alarmingly high role in shaping labor earnings distribution in China, and reveals notable gender differences that cannot be attributed to personal effort alone. These results provide the basis for recommending ways to improve gender equality of opportunity in the future.     

人力资本、社会资本与流动人口就业收入 —基于流动人口正规就业与非正规就业的比较分析

文章通过建立OLS回归方程以及Oaxaca—Blinder的分解方法,实证分析了人力资本、社会资本与我国流动人口就业收入的关系,研究发现：人力资本对流动人口正规就业收入有明显影响而对非正规就业收入影响很小,社会资本是影响流动人口非正规就业收入的主要因素但对正规就业收入影响不大。 Oaxaca—Blinder 的分解表明：流动人口非正规就业者和正规就业者收入差距的50.69％归结于流动人口内部特征上的差异,受教育程度差异是造成其工资收入差异的主要原因。     

Inequality and the Urban-rural Divide in China： Effects of Regressive Taxation

Using three comparable national representative household surveys for China in 1988, 1995 and 2002, the present paper reveals the regressivity and urban bias of China＇s direct tax and welfare system in this period It shows that a regressive taxation system and skewed allocation of subsidies increases the urban-rural income gap and enhances overall inequality. Modeling these relationships indicates that the relatively poorer rural population has a net tax liability, whereas those in the richer urban areas receive net subsidies. This pattern is common in China, although the extent of the bias varies. This skewed system of tax and welfare payments is a major cause of the persisting urban-rural income gap and contributes to the overall income inequality in China. The abolishment of the agriculture tax in 2006 has had a positive impact on rural people ＇s livelihoods.     

创新与收入不平等

文章运用1995-2014年中国省际面板数据,从部门内和部门间两个视角,考察总体创新和产业创新水平对收入不平等的影响。实证结果表明不同类型的创新活动对收入不平等产生了不同影响：对于城镇居民收入不平等,总体创新水平和高新技术创新水平具有显著的扩大作用,创新带来了不同收入阶层内部的分化;对于农村居民收入不平等,农业创新水平具有显著的缩小作用,显示出农业创新对农民增收的积极作用;对于城乡收入差距,总体创新水平和农业创新水平具有缩小作用,而高新技术产业创新水平具有显著扩大作用。不仅如此,由于城乡收入差距存在显著的正向空间自相关,总体创新和高新技术产业创新对相邻地区城乡收入差距有显著的扩大作用。     

市场化与城乡收入差距：基于中国省际面板数据的实证分析

在我国经济转型过程中,城乡居民收入差距呈现逐渐扩大的趋势。文章选取2001--2005年我国31个省市区的面板数据,通过实证分析发现,市场化程度越高的地区,城乡收入差距总水平也越低,但市场化程度的提高会导致城乡居民收入差距进一步拉大。因此,要缩小城乡收入差距,一方面要进一步推进市场化、城市化的进程,促进城乡经济的协调发展,另一方面要加大政府对农村的投入,构建起收入公平分配的各种制度安排。     

Income inequality and subjective wellbeing: Panel data evidence from China

Using four waves of longitudinal data from the China Family Panel Studies (CFPS), we examine the effects of income inequality on subjective wellbeing (SWB). We take a dual approach in measuring income inequality, and thus, we examine the effects of inequality using province-level Gini coefficient as well as between-group inequality or identity-related inequality defined as the income gap between migrants without urban household registration identity (hukou) and urban residents. We find negative effects of both province-level income inequality and between-group income inequality on SWB, measured by life satisfaction. Our results also show that the effects of income inequality on SWB is stronger for rural hukou residents compared to urban hukou residents. These findings are robust to alternative ways of measuring SWB and income inequality. In addition, we find evidence suggesting that neighbourhood trust is an important channel through which income inequality operates to reduce SWB. We suggest policies that promote trust in communities with high inequality with a view of addressing the negative effects of inequality on SWB.     

Inequality in South Africa: The distribution of income,expenditure and earnings

This article empirically analyses the state of inequality in South Africa. International comparisons show South Africa to be among the most unequal countries in the world. The levels of income inequality and earnings inequality are analysed with a range of measures and methods. The results quantify the extremely high level of inequality in South Africa. Earnings inequality appears to be falling in recent years, with relative losses in the upper-middle parts of the earnings distribution. Decomposing income inequality by factor source reveals the importance of earnings in accounting for overall income inequality. The article concludes by observing that, internationally, significant sustained decreases in inequality rarely come about without policies aimed at achieving that, and suggests that strong policy interventions would be needed to reduce inequality in South Africa to levels that are in the range typically found internationally.     

Rural-urban Migration and Dynamics of Income Distribution in China： A Non-parametric Approach

Extending the income dynamics approach in Quah (2003), the present paper studies the enlarging income inequality in China over the past three decades from the viewpoint of rural–urban migration and economic transition. We establish non‐parametric estimations of rural and urban income distribution functions in China, and aggregate a population‐weighted, nationwide income distribution function taking into account rural–urban differences in technological progress and price indexes. We calculate 12 inequality indexes through non‐parametric estimation to overcome the biases in existing parametric estimation and, therefore, provide more accurate measurement of income inequality. Policy implications have been drawn based on our research.     

Unemployment, Poverty and Income Disparity in Urban China

This paper studies the issues of unemployment and poverty that have been appearing recently in urban China. It estimates the urban unemployment rate, poverty rate and income disparity using a new sample survey data set. Meanwhile, it analyzes the relationship between unemployment and poverty, and the effects of poverty on urban inequality. The main findings are that: (i) the urban unemployment rate reached 11.6% in 1999 and was a major cause of urban poverty; (ii) growing urban poverty is becoming the significant source of worsening urban inequality; and (iii) migrant households have an increasing influence on urban poverty and the pattern of urban income distribution. The paper concludes that urban income distribution has worsened since 1995, and urban unemployment and poverty are the major factors in this worsening.     

Education expansion,assortative marriage,and income inequality in China

In this paper, we study the pattern of assortative marriage in China since 1990 and its impact on income inequality. The results indicate that men in China are increasingly likely to marry women of similar education levels. We calculate the counterfactual income inequality that would prevail if marriages were randomly matched in terms of education. In 2005, China's overall Gini coefficient of household income per capita would decline from 0.512 to 0.476 if marriages were randomly matched. In urban areas, assortative marriage in education increased the Gini coefficients from 0.321 to 0.338 in 2009. The decomposition exercise shows that the rising returns to education contribute most to the increase in income inequality in urban areas between 1990 and 2009, while the change in marriage assortativeness plays a minor role.