Jiyoun An: Income inequality in China has reached severe conditions. According to a survey from the Institute of Social Science, Peking University, in 2014, the richest 1 percent of households owned one-third of the country's wealth. Moreover, the Gini coefficient is close to 0.47, which is higher than figures of the United States, Mexico, and the Philippines. The high income gap level has caused socioeconomic problems in China. The paper by Wan, Wu, and Zhang touches upon this important issue by identifying the current status of the income gap trend using various data sources.
China's income gap has increased rapidly with economic growth since the 1990s. A few studies, such as Wan (2013) and Kanbur, Wang, and Zhang (2017), have identified the declining trend of the income gap. This paper also notices the recent trend and provides comprehensive empirical evidence by using five nationwide household surveys...