Tag Archives: inequality

Poverty reduction and effects of pro-poor policies in rural China

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Li, Shi (2014). Poverty reduction and effects of pro-poor policies in rural China. China & World Economy, 22, p. 22–41. Pre-published online: 12 March 2014. DOI: 10.1111/j.1749-124X.2014.12060.x

The present paper describes changes in poverty reduction in recent decades and the effects of income growth and inequality on poverty reduction in rural China. The paper also examines the main poverty alleviation policies implemented in rural areas over the past 10 years and assesses the effectiveness and efficiency of these policies from the perspective of targeting accuracy. It is found that China has achieved significant progress in rural poverty reduction in recent decades, although the speed of poverty reduction has varied from one period to another. The largest contribution to rural poverty reduction has been economic growth, which has been increasingly offset by the inequality effect on poverty reduction. In addition, poverty alleviation policies are effective, but not efficient.

Read full text article on Wiley Library Online (restricted access).

Monique Abud

Centre d'études sur la Chine moderne et contemporaine, EHESS, Paris, France

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Spatial inequality in Asia

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Special Session at the 2015 AAG Annual Meeting: The Geography of Inequality in Asia

Inequality is a fundamental issue for human society, a core subject of academic inquiry, and a major concern of governments. There has been a long-lasting debate about the pattern, trajectory, and mechanisms of geographical inequality, as well as policies that address poverty and inequality. This debate has been dominated by convergence (e.g., neoclassical economics) and divergence (e.g., dependency, neo-Marxism) schools. Concerns for the negative effects of globalization and liberalization and the unequal benefits of the transition in socialist countries have generated renewed debates since the late 1980s, which are intellectually enriched by developments in the new economic geography, new growth theory, economic sociology, institutional/evolutionary economic geography, and GIS. Thanks largely to the intensification of globalization and the uneven consequences of the recent global financial crisis, inequality has once again become a hotly debated topic among top world leaders, including those of the United Nations, World Bank and United States.

The geography of inequality has also drawn renewed scholarly interest, but the existing knowledge is fragmented and partial. This session intends to attract scholars with varied backgrounds to examine the dimensions, complexity, and dynamics of the geography of inequality from multiple perspectives.

Potential topics include, but are not limited to, the following:

  • Outcomes: income, social, health, education, digital, innovation, environmental inequalities, etc., and their interactive effects
  • Trajectory/Dynamics: Timing, effects of intergenerational inequality, levels of development
  • Scale: From global to local and everyday life, with an emphasis on the regional scale
  • Space/Place: Spatial association/agglomeration/clustering, core-periphery relations, uneven nature of inequality, space/place as agents etc.
  • Networks: Spatial relations, flows, interactions
  • Processes/Mechanisms: Globalization, liberalization, marketization, institutional change, decentralization, geography
  • Procedures/Policies: Role of institutions, policy effects and options, justice, planning
  • Methodology: ESDA, spatial regression, GWR, multilevel modeling, spatial Markov chain, spatial distribution dynamics, big data etc.

Date

  • April 21-25, 2015

Location

  • AAG Annual Meeting, Chicago, Ill.

Organizers

  • Yehua Dennis Wei, Professor, Department of Geography and Institute of Public and International Affairs, University of Utah, wei@geog.utah.edu.
  • Sanjoy Chakravorty, Professor, Department of Geography and Urban Studies, Temple University, sanjoy@temple.edu.

Submission Procedure

  • Please submit your participation/registration fee and abstracts online through the AAG’s website (www.aag.org). We would appreciate it if you would send us your PIN and title at your earliest time, at least two weeks before the AAG official deadline, to give us time to finalize and register the sessions.

 More info at: 

 

Monique Abud

Centre d'études sur la Chine moderne et contemporaine, EHESS, Paris, France

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Ren-Urban China

Urban China

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Ren, Xuefei. (2013) Urban China. Cambridge : Polity Press. 218 p (China today).

Ren Xuefei is assistant professor of sociology and global urban studies at Michigan State University.

Description

Currently there are more than 125 Chinese cities with a population exceeding one million. The Ren Xuefei - Urban Chinaunprecedented urban growth in China presents a crucial development for studies on globalization and urban transformation. This book examines the past trajectories, present conditions, and future prospects of Chinese urbanization, by investigating five key themes – governance, migration, landscape, inequality, and cultural economy.

Based on a comprehensive evaluation of the literature and original research materials, Ren offers a critical account of the Chinese urban condition after the first decade of the twenty-first century. She argues that the urban-rural dichotomy that was artificially constructed under socialism is no longer a meaningful lens for analyses and that Chinese cities have become strategic sites for reassembling citizenship rights for both urban residents and rural migrants.

For students and scholars of urban and development studies with a focus on China, and all interested in understanding the relationship between state, capitalism, and urbanization in the global context.

Table of Contents

  • Chapter 1 China Urbanized
  • Chapter 2 Governance
  • Chapter 3 Landscape
  • Chapter 4 Migration
  • Chapter 5 Inequality
  • Chapter 6 Cultural Economy
  • Conclusion

 Publisher’s website

Monique Abud

Centre d'études sur la Chine moderne et contemporaine, EHESS, Paris, France

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Conference on China, inequality, growth and the middle-income trap

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More than three decades of high economic growth has transformed the Chinese economy. As China has quickly gone from being a low- to a middle-income country, it is facing new challenges which may, if not dealt with, result in a middle-income trap.

This conference will collect academic papers at both the micro and macro level with the aim of providing empirical evidence concerning challenges in terms of inequality, growth, the risk of a middle-income trap and potential policies to address them.

Location

Date

  • July 1-2, 2013

Organizers

Contact

Website

Monique Abud

Centre d'études sur la Chine moderne et contemporaine, EHESS, Paris, France

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Conference on the study of inequality in China

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A conference on the study of inequality in China will be held at the University of Chicago Center in Beijing on Monday, June 17, 2013. It is organized by the Human Capital and Economic Opportunity Global Working Group, and co-sponsored by the University of Chicago Center in Beijing and the China Center for Economic Research.

The current program of the conference includes four main presentations which will explore different aspects of inequality in China. 

The conference will be held on the first day of the Beijing Summer School on Socioeconomic Inequality (June 17 to June 23, 2013). This summer school is designed to provide state-of-the-art overviews of different aspects of the study of inequality with a specific focus on China.

Location

  •   University of Chicago Center in Beijing, R. P. China

Date

  • June 17, 2013 (Conference)
  • June 17-23, 2013 (Beijing Summer School)

Contact

Website

 

Monique Abud

Centre d'études sur la Chine moderne et contemporaine, EHESS, Paris, France

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Urbanization: a tool to reduce inequality?

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China’s new populist urbanization

Since Li Keqiang was tipped to succeed Wen Jiabao as China’s premier, analysts have been trying to come to a better understanding of Li’s thoughts on urbanization. This is because Li has prominently identified urbanization as the growth engine of the Chinese economy and one of the main focuses on the new administration.

Li’s first press conference as premier this past weekend helped shed a bit of light on what urbanization (城镇化) might mean in terms of policy. Premier Li’s description of urbanization focused on the issue of inequality, both between poor and rich within cities and the urban and rural areas across China. The solution, according to Premier Li, is to better integrate migrant workers into cities and to spread urbanization out into the smaller cities and less developed regions of the country. This activity will generate significant new investment opportunities and raise domestic consumption levels helping to rebalance the Chinese economy.

This represents a profoundly populist spin on urbanization, which has historically been one of the primary drivers of inequality in China. Read more

Will municipal bonds save China’s urbanization plan?

Increasingly China’s new leadership has revitalized the topic of urbanization. Last November, the vice-premier, Li Keqiang, wrote an article calling urbanization a “huge engine” for future economic growth. More recently, the newly released income inequality plan has even described urbanization as a tool to reduce income inequality.

This renewed emphasis on urbanization appears to have re-opened the topic of financing local infrastructure projects. In the fourth quarter 2012 monetary policy report released earlier this month, the Peoples Bank of China (PBC) wrote an exhibit entitled “the international experience of financing construction for urbanization.” In this exhibit, the Peoples Bank observed a strong correlation between urbanization and municipal bonds across countries from the 1950s to today. They found that the use of municipal bonds backed by tax revenues was the most effective tool for supporting urbanization “no matter whether you have a federal or centralized system of government.” Read more

 

 

Monique Abud

Centre d'études sur la Chine moderne et contemporaine, EHESS, Paris, France

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