IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/bwp/bwppap/10910.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The trend of the Gini coefficient of China

Author

Listed:
  • Jiandong Chen
  • Dai Dai
  • Ming Pu
  • Wenxuan Hou
  • Qiaobin Feng

Abstract

A literature review indicates that the main problem in calculating the Gini coefficient of Chinese residents’ income is the shortcomings of the data sources. Though many studies have tried to overcome these limitations through decomposing the nationwide Gini ratio by urban and rural areas, the final results have been underestimated, due to the overlap term or residual in the decomposition. This paper analyses the effects of the overlap term on calculating the overall Gini coefficient through a statistical approach, and estimates Chinese Gini ratios since economic reform and open door policies were adopted. Based on decomposing the Chinese Gini coefficient from 1978 to 2006, the authors find that the key factor of income inequality comes from income disparity between rural and urban inhabitants. The authors investigate the features of this income inequality between rural and urban areas. Furthermore, statistical approaches are employed to evaluate the effects of the development of urbanisation and rural-to-urban average income on the income inequality of the whole nation. The results show that accelerating the pace of urbanisation is the key issue to improving Chinese income disparity. On the basis of the above analysis, the paper proposes related policies for policy-makers.

Suggested Citation

  • Jiandong Chen & Dai Dai & Ming Pu & Wenxuan Hou & Qiaobin Feng, 2010. "The trend of the Gini coefficient of China," Global Development Institute Working Paper Series 10910, GDI, The University of Manchester.
    • Handle: RePEc:bwp:bwppap:10910
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hummedia.manchester.ac.uk/institutes/gdi/publications/workingpapers/bwpi/bwpi-wp-10910.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Dennis Tao Yang, 1999. "Urban-Biased Policies and Rising Income Inequality in China," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 89(2), pages 306-310, May.
    2. Branko Milanovic, 2002. "True World Income Distribution, 1988 and 1993: First Calculation Based on Household Surveys Alone," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 112(476), pages 51-92, January.
    3. Peter J. Lambert & Andre' Decoster, 2005. "The Gini coefficient reveals more," Metron - International Journal of Statistics, Dipartimento di Statistica, Probabilità e Statistiche Applicate - University of Rome, vol. 0(3), pages 373-400.
    4. Deaton, Angus, 1995. "Data and econometric tools for development analysis," Handbook of Development Economics, in: Hollis Chenery & T.N. Srinivasan (ed.), Handbook of Development Economics, edition 1, volume 3, chapter 33, pages 1785-1882, Elsevier.
    5. Lambert, Peter J & Aronson, J Richard, 1993. "Inequality Decomposition Analysis and the Gini Coefficient Revisited," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 103(420), pages 1221-1227, September.
    6. Khan, Azizur Rahman & Riskin, Carl, 2001. "Inequality and Poverty in China in the Age of Globalization," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780195136494.
    7. Fang, Cheng & Zhang, Xiaobo & Fan, Shenggen, 2002. "Emergence of urban poverty and inequality in China: evidence from household survey," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 13(4), pages 430-443, December.
    8. Shorrocks, Anthony F, 1984. "Inequality Decomposition by Population Subgroups," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 52(6), pages 1369-1385, November.
    9. Sen, Amartya, 1997. "On Economic Inequality," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780198292975.
    10. Mookherjee, Dilip & Shorrocks, Anthony F, 1982. "A Decomposition Analysis of the Trend in UK Income Inequality," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 92(368), pages 886-902, December.
    11. Pyatt, Graham, 1976. "On the Interpretation and Disaggregation of Gini Coefficients," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 86(342), pages 243-255, June.
    12. A.B. Atkinson & F. Bourguignon (ed.), 2000. "Handbook of Income Distribution," Handbook of Income Distribution, Elsevier, edition 1, volume 1, number 1.
    13. Anthony Shorrocks & Guanghua Wan, 2005. "Spatial decomposition of inequality," Journal of Economic Geography, Oxford University Press, vol. 5(1), pages 59-81, January.
    14. Hajo Holzmann & Sebastian Vollmer & Julian Weisbrod, 2007. "Income Distribution Dynamics and Pro-Poor Growth in the World from 1970 to 2003," Ibero America Institute for Econ. Research (IAI) Discussion Papers 161, Ibero-America Institute for Economic Research.
    15. Shujie Yao, 1997. "Decomposition of Gini coefficients by income factors: a new approach and application," Applied Economics Letters, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 4(1), pages 27-31.
    16. Lopez, Humberto & Serven, Luis, 2006. "A normal relationship ? Poverty, growth, and inequality," Policy Research Working Paper Series 3814, The World Bank.
    17. Gibson, John & Huang, Jikun & Rozelle, Scott, 2001. "Why is income inequality so low in China compared to other countries?: The effect of household survey methods," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 71(3), pages 329-333, June.
    18. Wataru Souma, 2000. "Universal Structure of the Personal Income Distribution," Papers cond-mat/0011373, arXiv.org.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Federico Attili, 2020. "Within-between decomposition of the Gini index: a novel proposal," Working Papers wp1153, Dipartimento Scienze Economiche, Universita' di Bologna.
    2. Ingvild Almås & Tarjei Havnes & Magne Mogstad, 2011. "Baby booming inequality? Demographic change and earnings inequality in Norway, 1967–2000," The Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer;Society for the Study of Economic Inequality, vol. 9(4), pages 629-650, December.
    3. Jørgen Modalsli, 2017. "Decomposing Global Inequality," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 63(3), pages 445-463, September.
    4. Simon Jurkatis, "undated". "Dos and Don'ts of Gini Decompositions," BDPEMS Working Papers 2013003, Berlin School of Economics.
    5. Elbers, Chris & Lanjouw, Peter & Mistiaen, Johan A. & Ozler, Berk, 2005. "Re-interpreting sub-group inequality decompositions," Policy Research Working Paper Series 3687, The World Bank.
    6. Allanson, Paul, 2014. "Income stratification and between-group inequality," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 124(2), pages 227-230.
    7. Ingvild Almås & Magne Mogstad, 2009. "Older or Wealthier? The Impact of Age Adjustments on the Wealth Inequality Ranking of Countries," Discussion Papers 583, Statistics Norway, Research Department.
    8. Leonardo Bonilla Mejía, 2011. "Diferencias regionales en la distribución del ingreso en Colombia," Revista Sociedad y Economía, Universidad del Valle, CIDSE, December.
    9. Erreygers, Guido, 2009. "Can a single indicator measure both attainment and shortfall inequality?," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 28(4), pages 885-893, July.
    10. Stéphane Mussard & Françoise Seyte & Michel Terraza, 2006. "La décomposition de l’indicateur de Gini en sous-groupes : une revue de la littérature," Cahiers de recherche 06-11, Departement d'économique de l'École de gestion à l'Université de Sherbrooke.
    11. Chen, Jiandong & Cheng, Shulei & Song, Malin & Wang, Jia, 2016. "Interregional differences of coal carbon dioxide emissions in China," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 96(C), pages 1-13.
    12. Bart Capéau & Andre Decoster, 2004. "The Rise or Fall of World Inequality: A Spurious Controversy?," WIDER Working Paper Series DP2004-02, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    13. Heshmati, Almas, 2004. "A Review of Decomposition of Income Inequality," IZA Discussion Papers 1221, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    14. Branko Milanovic, 2002. "True World Income Distribution, 1988 and 1993: First Calculation Based on Household Surveys Alone," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 112(476), pages 51-92, January.
    15. Anthony Shorrocks & Guanghua Wan, 2005. "Spatial decomposition of inequality," Journal of Economic Geography, Oxford University Press, vol. 5(1), pages 59-81, January.
    16. Jurkatis, Simon & Strehl, Wolfgang, 2014. "Gini decompositions and Gini elasticities: On measuring the importance of income sources and population subgroups for income inequality," Discussion Papers 2014/22, Free University Berlin, School of Business & Economics.
    17. I. Josa & A. Aguado, 2020. "Measuring Unidimensional Inequality: Practical Framework for the Choice of an Appropriate Measure," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 149(2), pages 541-570, June.
    18. Shlomo Yitzhaki & Edna Schechtman, 2009. "The “melting pot”: A success story?," The Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer;Society for the Study of Economic Inequality, vol. 7(2), pages 137-151, June.
    19. Ingvild Almås & Magne Mogstad, 2009. "Older or Wealthier? The Impact of Age Adjustments on the Wealth Inequality Ranking of Countries," Discussion Papers 583, Statistics Norway, Research Department.
    20. Jr-Tsung Huang & Chun-Chien Kuo & An-Pang Kao, 2003. "The Inequality of Regional Economic Development in China between 1991 and 2001," Journal of Chinese Economic and Business Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 1(3), pages 273-285.

    More about this item

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bwp:bwppap:10910. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Rowena Harding (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/wpmanuk.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.