China's explosive economic growth since 1988 has not resulted in an equal increase of income among all Chinese citizens. The authors explore a range of reasons for the disparity and base their conclusions on strong empirical evidence--especially the 1996 survey conducted by the State Statistical...

The paper addresses three issues: (i) the effects of economic reform on the distribution of income in the urban areas of China, (ii) changes in the incidence of urban poverty and (iii) the role of government policy in accentuating urban poverty and inequality. The empirical analysis is based on...