Using new household survey data for 1995 and 2002, we investigate the size of China’s urban-rural income gap, the gap’s contribution to overall inequality in China, and the factors underlying the gap. Our analysis improves on past estimates by using a fuller measure of income, adjusting for...

China’s recent accession to the WTO is expected to accelerate its integration into the world economy, which aggravates concerns over the impact of globalization on the already rising inter-regional income inequality in China. This paper discusses China’s globalization process and estimates...

This paper focuses on inequality in living standards across oblasts and regions within Kazakhstan, the Kyrgyz Republic, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan. Regional inequality is an important area of research and policy development. Inequality in income and consumption are logical outcomes...

China’s current fiscal system is largely decentralized while its governance structure is rather centralized with strong top-down mandates and a homogenous governance structure. Due to large differences in initial economic structures and revenue bases, the implicit tax rate and fiscal burdens...

This paper argues that the regional income gap of China is endogenously determined by its long-term economic development strategy. Development strategies can be broadly divided into two mutually exclusive groups: (i) the comparative advantage-defying (CAD) strategy, which attempts to encourage...

This paper depicts the trend of regional inequality in rural China for the period 1985-2002. The total inequality is decomposed into the so-called within- and between-components when China is divided into three regional belts (east, central and west). A regression-based accounting framework is...

In this paper, we provide empirical evidence for the influence of income taxes on the choice of residence of taxpayers at the local level. The fact that Swiss communities can individually set tax multipliers thereby shifting the progressive tax scheme which is fixed at the cantonal (state) level...

To control for product quality and eliminate the exchange rate volatility effect, we use the Japanese regional data to study the Penn effect - the positive relationship between price and income levels. Similarly to what is widely documented with international data, the price and income levels...

In the Latin American context, Chile has the highest level of per capita income and the human development index, though the distribution of income is quite unequal. Unlike Uruguay, Chile has one of the more unequal income distributions of the region. In 2003, Chile had Gini Coefficient of 8.5...

Foreign direct investments (FDI) are an important determinant of economic growth. Coun-tries try to attract mobile capital in order to foster economic development, albeit FDI might increase regional inequality since the many different regions of a country usually do not receive FDI in equal...