Beyond Kuznets: Persistent Regional Inequality in China

Authors

Christopher Candelaria

Galina Hale

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2009-07 | November 1, 2010

Regional inequality in China appears to be persistent and even growing in the past two decades. We study potential offsetting factors and interprovincial migration to shed light on the sources of this persistence. We find that some of the inequality could be attributed to differences in quality of labor, industry composition, and geographical location of provinces. We also demonstrate that interprovincial migration, while driven in part by wage differences across provinces, does not offset these differences. Finally, we find that interprovincial redistribution did not help offset regional inequality during our sample period.

About the Authors
Mary C. Daly is president and CEO of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco. Learn more about Mary C. Daly