CEA 42nd Annual Meetings
Friday, June 6 - Sunday, June 8, 2008
University of British Columbia, Vancouver

Author/Presenter Runjuan Liu (University of Alberta)
Co-authors Jun Han (University of Hong Kong)
  Junsen Zhang (Chinese University of Hong Kong)
Title Globalization, Poverty and Inequality in Urban China
Abstract Although there is some consensus on the distributional effects of globalization in North America, little is known about its effects on poverty and inequality in a typical developing country like China. In this paper, we use two sharp "open-up" policy changes, Deng Xiaoping's "South Tour" in 1993 and China's WTO accession in 2001, to measure the causal impacts of globalization on urban poverty and inequality in China. Employing Chinese Urban Household Survey data from 1988 to 2005, we focus the analysis on whether regions that were more exposed to globalization experienced smaller or bigger changes in income and consumption than less-exposed regions. Further, we test whether the impacts of globalization are heterogeneous for different educational groups and occupational categories. We find that globalization alleviates the urban poverty in China, but it increases the urban inequality because skilled workers benefit more from globalization.

Web Link http://www.business.ualberta.ca/rliu/Research/China.pdf

CEA 2008 Conference | Conference Program