Work

Fifty Years of Regional Inequality in China: a Journey Through Central Planning, Reform, and Openness

Year: 2005

Type: article

Abstract: The paper constructs and analyzes a long‐run time series for regional inequality in China from the Communist Revolution to the present. There have been three peaks of inequality in the last fifty years, coinciding with the Great Famine of the late 1950s, the Cultural Revolution of the late 1960s and 1970s, and finally the period of openness and global integration in the late 1990s. Econometric analysis establishes that regional inequality is explained in the different phases by three key policy variables—the ratio of heavy industry to gross output value, the degree of decentralization, and the degree of openness.

Source: Review of Development Economics

DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-9361.2005.00265.x

Authors: Ravi Kanbur, Xiaobo Zhang

Institutions: Cornell University, International Food Policy Research Institute

Language: English

Topic: China's Socioeconomic Reforms and Governance

Subfield: Political Science and International Relations

Field: Social Sciences

Domain: Social Sciences

SDG: Reduced inequalities

Open Access status: green

OpenAlex ID: W2154084946