Why is it that, as the Chinese Communist Party has loosened its grip, abandoned its core beliefs, and marketized the economy, its membership has risen markedly along with the economic benefits of joining? We use three national household surveys, spanning eleven years, to answer this question...

This paper estimates trends in absolute poverty in urban China from 1988 to 2002 using the Chinese Household Income Project (CHIP) surveys. Poverty incidence curves are plotted, showing that poverty has fallen markedly during the period regardless of the exact location of the poverty line....

This paper examines the effects of state sector domination on wage inequality in urban China. Using Chinese Household Income Project surveys, we conduct two exercises: with quantile regression analysis, we identify wage gaps across the distribution and over time; and we employ the Machado and...

This paper examines change in wage gaps in urban China by estimating quantile regressions on CHIPS data. It applies the Machado and Mata (2005) decomposition, finding sharp increases in inequality from 1988 to 1995 and from 2002 to 2008 largely due to changes in the wage structure. The analysis...