China's Growth and Poverty Reduction : Trends between 1990 and 1999
The authors investigate recent rends in poverty, and inequality in China, decomposing data on poverty reduction to see who has benefited most from China's economic growth. They find that, by several measures, poverty declined significantly in...
Main Authors: | , |
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Format: | Policy Research Working Paper |
Language: | English en_US |
Published: |
World Bank, Washington, DC
2014
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Subjects: | |
Online Access: | http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/2001/07/1552067/chinas-growth-poverty-reduction-trends-between-1990-1999 http://hdl.handle.net/10986/19586 |
Summary: | The authors investigate recent rends in
poverty, and inequality in China, decomposing data on
poverty reduction to see who has benefited most from
China's economic growth. They find that, by several
measures, poverty declined significantly in the 1990s,
across a wide range of poverty lines, except that a slight
slowdown in China's export, and economic growth in
1997-99 might have hurt the poor. There was a slight
increase in the poverty headcount between 1997 and 1999,
using lower poverty lines, and a worsening of the poverty
gap index. Average per capita consumption declined for
farmers, especially those living in poor regions such as
Gans, Heilongjiang, Sanxi, and Xinjiang. It is unclear
whether this decline was attributable to Asia's
economic crisis. Economic growth contributed significantly
to poverty reduction, but rising inequality worsened both
rural, and urban income distributions - except during the
Asian crisis, when the distribution remained relatively
stable. The poor benefited far less than the rich from
economic growth. Income growth reached, or exceeded the
average growth rate only for the richest twenty percent of
the population. The authors then examine the relationship
between human capital, growth, and poverty. They find that
the accumulation of human capital had slowed, and that there
is a huge regional disparity in human capital stock. And the
distribution of education is becoming increasingly skewed.
China must address this problem if it is to succeed in
attacking poverty, and inequality. |
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