This paper analyzes the changes in public–private sector earnings differentials for local residents in urban China between 2002 and 2007. We find that earnings gaps across ownership sectors decreased during this period and that the convergence trend has been in favor of the private and...

This paper discusses the determinants of firewood consumption in a poor township in rural northern China, with a special focus on the relationship between households' economic wealth and firewood consumption. We find strong support for the poverty–environment hypothesis since household...

We use three waves of urban household survey from 1995 to 2007 to investigate the trends of residual inequality and its determinants. First, we find that the enlargement in both the overall and residual inequality was larger at the upper half of the wage distributions between 2002 and 2007....

We document the sharp expansion of higher education in China beginning in 1999 and analyze its impacts on the unemployment of college graduates, using nationally representative population surveys from 2000 and 2005. We show that the expansion policy has increased the probability of college...

Using the China Household Income Project migrant survey data from 2007 to 2008, this paper examines the association between migrant workers' labor contract status and their social insurance participation, including pensions, work injury insurance, unemployment insurance, medical insurance, and...

The paper examines the contentious issue of the extent of surplus labour that remains in China. China was an extreme example of a surplus labour economy, but the rapid economic growth during the period of economic reform requires a reassessment of whether the second stage of the Lewis model has...

This paper discusses data used in publishing statistics on earnings, the distribution of household income and poverty in China by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) which is widely used by policy makers, international agencies and researchers. Unlike many other countries, China until...