Labor Market Distortions, Rural-Urban Inequality, and the Opening of China's Economy

Hertel and Zhai evaluate the impact of two key factor market distortions in China on rural-urban inequality and income distribution. They find that creation of a fully functioning land market has a significant impact on rural-urban inequality. This reform permits agricultural households to focus sol...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Zhai, Fan
Other Authors: Zhai,Fan, Hertel, Thomas W.
Format: eBook
Language:English
Published: Washington, D.C The World Bank 2004
Subjects:
Online Access:
Collection: World Bank E-Library Archive - Collection details see MPG.ReNa
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653 |a Urban Housing and Land 
653 |a Labor Market 
653 |a Macroeconomics and Economic Growth 
653 |a Markets and Market Access 
653 |a Financial Literacy 
653 |a International Economics & Trade 
653 |a Labor Force 
653 |a Factor Markets 
653 |a Social Protections and Labor 
653 |a Rural Development 
653 |a Labor Markets 
653 |a Rural Poverty Reduction 
653 |a Labor 
653 |a Household Survey 
653 |a Urban Development Policy 
653 |a Poverty Reduction 
653 |a Income Distribution 
653 |a Debt Markets 
653 |a Product Market Reform 
653 |a Labor Mobility 
653 |a Finance and Financial Sector Development 
653 |a Product Market 
653 |a Economic Theory and Research 
653 |a Labor Policies 
653 |a Income Inequality 
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700 1 |a Hertel, Thomas W. 
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520 |a Hertel and Zhai evaluate the impact of two key factor market distortions in China on rural-urban inequality and income distribution. They find that creation of a fully functioning land market has a significant impact on rural-urban inequality. This reform permits agricultural households to focus solely on the differential between farm and nonfarm returns to labor in determining whether to work on or off-farm. This gives rise to an additional 10 million people moving out of agriculture by 2007 and lends a significant boost to the incomes of those remaining in agriculture. This off-farm migration also contributes to a significant rise in rural-urban migration, thereby lowering urban wages, particularly for unskilled workers. As a consequence, rural-urban inequality declines significantly. The authors find that reform of the Hukou system has the most significant impact on aggregate economic activity, as well as income distribution. Whereas the land market reform primarily benefits the agricultural households, this reform's primary beneficiaries are the rural households currently sending temporary migrants to the city. By reducing the implicit tax on temporary migrants, Hukou reform boosts their welfare and contributes to increased rural-urban migration. The combined effect of both factor market reforms is to reduce the urban-rural income ratio dramatically, from 2.59 in 2007 under the authors' baseline scenario to 2.27. When viewed as a combined policy package, along with WTO accession, rather than increasing inequality in China, the combined impact of product and factor market reforms significantly reduces rural-urban income inequality. This is an important outcome in an economy currently experiencing historic levels of rural-urban inequality. This paper—a product of the Trade Team, Development Research Group—is part of a larger effort in the group to evaluate the poverty impacts of trade policy reforms