IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/wbk/wbrwps/4621.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

China is poorer than we thought, but no less successful in the fight against poverty

Author

Listed:
  • Chen, Shaohua
  • Ravallion, Martin

Abstract

In 2005, China participated for the first time in the International Comparison Program (ICP), which collects primary data across countries on the prices for an internationally comparable list of goods and services. This paper examines the implications of the new Purchasing Power Parity (PPP) rate (derived by the ICP) for China's poverty rate (by international standards) and how it has changed over time. We provide estimates with and without adjustment for a likely sampling bias in the ICP data. Using an international poverty line of USD 1.25 at 2005 PPP, we find a substantially higher poverty rate for China than past estimates, with about 15% of the population living in consumption poverty, implying about 130 million more poor by this standard. The income poverty rate in 2005 is 10%, implying about 65 million more people living in poverty. However, the new ICP data suggest an even larger reduction in the number of poor since 1981.

Suggested Citation

  • Chen, Shaohua & Ravallion, Martin, 2008. "China is poorer than we thought, but no less successful in the fight against poverty," Policy Research Working Paper Series 4621, The World Bank.
    • Handle: RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:4621
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www-wds.worldbank.org/external/default/WDSContentServer/WDSP/IB/2008/05/19/000158349_20080519094812/Rendered/PDF/wps4621.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Martin Ravallion & Shaohua Chen & Prem Sangraula, 2007. "New Evidence on the Urbanization of Global Poverty," Population and Development Review, The Population Council, Inc., vol. 33(4), pages 667-701, December.
    2. Wade, Robert Hunter, 2004. "Is Globalization Reducing Poverty and Inequality?," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 32(4), pages 567-589, April.
    3. Shaohua Chen & Martin Ravallion, 2004. "How Have the World's Poorest Fared since the Early 1980s?," The World Bank Research Observer, World Bank, vol. 19(2), pages 141-169.
    4. Ravallion, Martin & Chen, Shaohua, 2007. "China's (uneven) progress against poverty," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 82(1), pages 1-42, January.
    5. Chen, Shaohua & Ravallion, Martin, 2007. "Absolute poverty measures for the developing world, 1981-2004," Policy Research Working Paper Series 4211, The World Bank.
    6. Martin Ravallion & Shaohua Chen & Prem Sangraula, 2007. "New Evidence on the Urbanization of Global Poverty," Population and Development Review, The Population Council, Inc., vol. 33(4), pages 667-701, December.
    7. Chen, Shaohua & Ravallion, Martin, 1996. "Data in transition: Assessing rural living standards in Southern China," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 7(1), pages 23-56.
    8. Ruoen, Ren & Chen Kai, 1995. "China's GDP in U.S. dollars based on purchasing power parity," Policy Research Working Paper Series 1415, The World Bank.
    9. Martin Ravallion & Gaurav Datt & Dominique van de Walle, 1991. "Quantifying Absolute Poverty In The Developing World," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 37(4), pages 345-361, December.
    10. Ravallion, M., 1998. "Poverty Lines in Theory and Practice," Papers 133, World Bank - Living Standards Measurement.
    11. repec:bla:revinw:v:37:y:1991:i:4:p:345-61 is not listed on IDEAS
    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. Shaohua Chen & Martin Ravallion, 2010. "The Developing World is Poorer than We Thought, But No Less Successful in the Fight Against Poverty," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 125(4), pages 1577-1625.
    2. Chen, Shaohua & Ravallion, Martin, 2007. "Absolute poverty measures for the developing world, 1981-2004," Policy Research Working Paper Series 4211, The World Bank.
    3. Martin Ravallion & Shaohua Chen & Prem Sangraula, 2009. "Dollar a Day Revisited," The World Bank Economic Review, World Bank, vol. 23(2), pages 163-184, June.
    4. Chen, Shaohua & Ravallion, Martin, 2021. "Reconciling the conflicting narratives on poverty in China," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 153(C).
    5. Moatsos Michail, 2016. "Global Absolute Poverty: Behind the Veil of Dollars," Journal of Globalization and Development, De Gruyter, vol. 7(2), pages 1-28, December.
    6. Ravallion, Martin, 2009. "Are There Lessons for Africa from China's Success Against Poverty?," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 37(2), pages 303-313, February.
    7. Martin Ravallion, 2013. "The Idea of Antipoverty Policy," NBER Working Papers 19210, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    8. John Gibson, 2016. "Poverty Measurement: We Know Less than Policy Makers Realize," Asia and the Pacific Policy Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 3(3), pages 430-442, September.
    9. Odusola, Ayodele, 2017. "Agriculture, Rural Poverty and Income Inequality in sub-Saharan Africa," UNDP Africa Economists Working Papers 266998, United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).
    10. WANG, Zuxiang & SMYTH, Russell & NG, Yew-Kwang, 2009. "A new ordered family of Lorenz curves with an application to measuring income inequality and poverty in rural China," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 20(2), pages 218-235, June.
    11. Narayanamoorthy, A. & Hanjra, Munir A., 2010. "What Contributes to Disparity in Rural-Urban Poverty in Tamil Nadu?: A District Level Analysis," Indian Journal of Agricultural Economics, Indian Society of Agricultural Economics, vol. 65(2), pages 1-17.
    12. de Janvry, Alain, 2009. "Leonard K. Elmhirst Lecture: Agriculture for development: New paradigm and options for success," 2009 Conference, August 16-22, 2009, Beijing, China 53202, International Association of Agricultural Economists.
    13. Martin Ravallion & Shaohua Chen & Prem Sangraula, 2007. "New Evidence on the Urbanization of Global Poverty," Population and Development Review, The Population Council, Inc., vol. 33(4), pages 667-701, December.
    14. Martin Ravallion, 2011. "The Two Poverty Enlightenments: Historical Insights from Digitized Books Spanning Three Centuries," Poverty & Public Policy, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 3(2), pages 1-46, June.
    15. repec:rac:ecchap:2017-05 is not listed on IDEAS
    16. Ferreira, Francisco H.G. & Ravallion, Martin, 2008. "Global poverty and inequality : a review of the evidence," Policy Research Working Paper Series 4623, The World Bank.
    17. Zack Zimbalist, 2017. "Breaking down rural and urban bias and interrogating spatial inequality, evidence from South Africa," Development Policy Review, Overseas Development Institute, vol. 35, pages 246-269, October.
    18. Facundo Alvaredo & Leonardo Gasparini, 2013. "Recent Trends in Inequality and Poverty in Developing Countries," CEDLAS, Working Papers 0151, CEDLAS, Universidad Nacional de La Plata.
    19. Luo, Xubei & Zhu, Nong, 2008. "Rising income inequality in China : a race to the top," Policy Research Working Paper Series 4700, The World Bank.
    20. Christiaensen, Luc & Todo, Yasuyuki, 2014. "Poverty Reduction During the Rural–Urban Transformation – The Role of the Missing Middle," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 63(C), pages 43-58.
    21. Edward, Peter, 2006. "Examining Inequality: Who Really Benefits from Global Growth?," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 34(10), pages 1667-1695, October.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Rural Poverty Reduction; Population Policies; Achieving Shared Growth; ICT Applications;
    All these keywords.

    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:wbk:wbrwps:4621. 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: Roula I. Yazigi (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/dvewbus.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.