Summary Survey data from urban China in 2002 show levels of life satisfaction to have been low, but not exceptionally so, by international comparison. Many of the determinants of life satisfaction in urban China appear comparable to those for people in other countries. These include, inter alia,...

Summary This paper estimates trends in absolute poverty in urban China using the Chinese Household Income Project surveys. Poverty incidence curves are plotted, showing lower poverty in 2002 than in 1988 irrespective of the poverty line chosen. Incomes of the poorest fell during 1988-95,...

This paper examines change in wage gaps in urban China from 1988 to 2008 by estimating quantile regressions on CHIPS data. It applies the Machado and Mata (2005) decomposition, finding sharp increases in inequality largely due to changes in the wage structure. During 2002–08, changes in the...

This paper analyzes the unit prices of imports into the EU, Japan, and the US during 1989–2006 of manufactured products in which China specializes. It finds that imports from middle income countries are in close price competition with those from China and that there has been price competition...

We provide firm level empirical evidence that the presence of foreign direct investment (FDI) has positively affected the institutional quality of the host regions in China. Specifically, Chinese domestic firms located in regions with a higher level of FDI tend to enjoy a lower level of tax and...