Wan, Guanghua

Zhang, Yin

English

This paper examines the distributional impact of globalization on the poor in urban China. Employing the kernel density estimation technique, we recovered from irregularly grouped household survey data the income distributions of 29 Chinese provinces for 1988–2001. Panels of the income shares of the poorest 20, 10 and 5 per cent of the urban residents were then compiled. In a fixed-effect model, two of the central conclusions of Dollar and Kraay (2002) – that ‘the incomes of the poor rise equi-proportionately with average income’ and that trade openness has little distributional effect on poverty – were revisited. Our results lend little support to either of the Dollar-Kraay conclusions, but instead indicate that average income growth is associated with worsening income distribution while globalization in general, and trade openness in particular, raises the income shares of the poor. It is also found that openness to trade and openness to FDI have differential distributional effects. The beneficial effect of trade was not restricted to the coastal provinces, but weakened significantly after 1992. These findings are robust to allowing for nonlinearity in the effect of globalization and to controlling for the influence of several other variables

University of Dundee Online Publications

(2002a). ‘The Disturbing Rise in Global Income Inequality’.

(2002b). ‘The World Distribution of Income’.

(2003a). ‘Measuring Aggregate Economic Welfare in Developing Countries: How well do National Accounts and Survey Agree?’

(2003b). ‘Inequality Convergence’.

A simple method for generating income data from Lorenz coordinates’, mimeo,

China’s (uneven) Progress Against Poverty’. Policy Research Working Paper 3408, World Bank,

Does Globalization Hurt the Poor?’ mimeo, World Bank,

Globalization and Regional Income Inequality: Evidence from within China’,

Growth is Good for the Poor’.

Income Distribution in Urban China During the Period of Economic Reform and Globalization’.

Income Distribution, Factor Endowments, and Trade Openness’.

Inflation and the Poor’.

Looking Beyond Averages in the Trade and Poverty Debate’. Policy Research Working Paper 3461, World Bank,

Poverty in China in the Period of Globalization: New

Spatial Price Differences in China: Estimates and Implications’,

The Ricardian Vice: Why Sala-i-Martin’s Calculations of World Income Inequality are Wrong’. Mimeo. World Bank,

Urban Poverty in China: Measurement, Patterns and Policies’. International Labour Office,

Wing Thye Woo, Shuming Bao, Gene Chang and Andrew Mellinger

Dundee Discussion Papers in Economics 196:Globalization and the urban poor in China

http://discovery.dundee.ac.uk/ws/files/109532/DDPE_196.pdf

Dundee Discussion Papers in Economics 196:Globalization and the urban poor in China

Abstract

Similar works

Full text

Available Versions

University of Dundee Online Publications

University of Dundee Online Publications