A Comparative Study on Wealth Inequality in China and the United States

Dachuan Yang ()
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Dachuan Yang: Reaady Global Academy

A chapter in Proceedings of the 2025 International Conference on Hybrid Commerce, Human Capital, and Economic Dynamics (ICHCH 2025), 2026, pp 936-943 from Springer

Abstract: Abstract Wealth inequality is a hot issue in today’s world, and the wealth inequality in different countries presents different features under different political and economic systems. In this paper, we make a comprehensive comparison on wealth inequality between China and the United States. Statistically, the United States is richer than China in wealth gap, that is, the returns of capital is larger than the income of labor under the liberalization, the wealth of the tech monopolization, and the system factors such as the education inequality and the regressive tax system contribute to the wealth inequality in the United States. As for China, the inequality comes from its process of economic system transformation from planned economy to market economy. The growth of reform period is limited to coastal areas, forming the urban-rural gap, and the household registration system restricts the migrants’ access to resources in the past. The policy responses are also different between the two countries. It is difficult for the United States to establish a coordinated welfare policy, but the policy response of China focuses on the revitalization of the countryside and the strategy of “common prosperity”. In this paper, we will study the impact of wealth inequality on social cohesion between the two countries. The United States is plagued by social unrest, while China is also facing the challenge of maintaining social cohesion in the process of economic development.

Keywords: Wealth Inequality; China; the United States (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2026
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:advbcp:978-2-38476-585-0_105

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DOI: 10.2991/978-2-38476-585-0_105

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