Ownership and Earnings Inequality in Urban China

Jin Song () and Shi Li ()
Additional contact information
Jin Song: School of Economics and Business Administration, Beijing Normal University, Beijing100875, China

Frontiers of Economics in China-Selected Publications from Chinese Universities, 2010, vol. 5, issue 4, 582-603

Abstract: Along with advances in urban state-owned enterprise reform, fast growth of private sector and changes in the wage structure, earnings inequality in urban China has been increasing. Using data from the 1988 and 2007 waves of the urban household survey conducted by China Household Income Project, this paper attempts to examine the impact of the change in ownership structure on earnings distribution in urban China. We find that developing non-state-owned enterprises (nonSOEs) or privatization of state-owned enterprises (SOEs) enlarge earnings inequality, but the difference in earnings level between the two sectors is small. Although workers in SOEs receive higher income than in nonSOEs, the difference is more caused by endowment difference rather than coefficient differences. Introducing market power to wage determination system is more influential to the rising earnings inequality which leads more rewards on working experience and educational attainment.

Keywords: ownership; earnings; inequality; urban China (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J16 J31 J71 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2010
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

Downloads: (external link)
http://journal.hep.com.cn/fec/EN/10.1007/s11459-010-0114-0 (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Ownership and earnings inequality in urban China (2010)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:fec:journl:v:5:y:2010:i:4:p:582-603

Access Statistics for this article

Frontiers of Economics in China-Selected Publications from Chinese Universities is currently edited by LONG Jie

More articles in Frontiers of Economics in China-Selected Publications from Chinese Universities from Higher Education Press
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Frank H. Liu ().