The Cost of Living in China: Implications for Inequality and Poverty

Abstract

China's economic development in recent decades has been tremendous, but subject to debate. This paper calculates regional prices that make incomes comparable across both time and space using the Engel-curve approach. Incomes are adjusted using these price indices, providing new estimates of inequality and poverty development. Our findings contrast with measures based on the official consumer price indices (CPIs) -in a time characterized by high economic growth, we find a larger increase in inequality and a more moderate poverty reduction than what is indicated by the CPI-adjusted measures.

Improving International Comparisons of Prices at Basic Heading Level: An Application to theAsia‐Pacific Region

“…Ravallion and Chen (), focusing on food and non‐food consumption, obtain a differential for China of 19 percent in 1980, rising to 41 percent in 2002. Almås and Johnsen (), using Engel curves, obtain a differential for China of 65 percent in 1995, falling to 15 percent in 2002. Brandt and Holz (), and Gong and Meng () compute spatial price differences across regions in China.…”

A Behavior‐Based Approach to the Estimation of Poverty in India

“… For example, Almås and Johnsen (), Barrett and Brzozowski (), Beatty and Larsen (), Carvalho Filho and Chamon (), Chung et al . (), Costa (), Gibson et al .…”

The World Bank and China: Future Prospects

“…Among many, many others, I could cite Nicholas R. Lardy , Yi Yao and Xiaobo Zhang , Chenggang Xu , Barry Naughton , Wei Chi et al. , Ingvild Almås and Auglænd Johnsen , and Björn Gustafsson and Ding Sai —with sincere apologies to all those omitted from this brief list. In this context, we can perhaps summarise by suggesting that the Bank's research on China remains valuable but is no longer as indispensable as it once was.…”