Based on a survey of 10,258 rural households and 9,009 urban households in China in 1988, a research project was carried out on household income and its distribution. The authors present an overview of the findings of this project. They note that the true urban-rural disparity in incomes is much...

The paper addresses three issues: (i) the effects of economic reform on the distribution of income in the urban areas of China, (ii) changes in the incidence of urban poverty and (iii) the role of government policy in accentuating urban poverty and inequality. The empirical analysis is based on...