Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/211283 
Year of Publication: 
2019
Series/Report no.: 
WIDER Working Paper No. 2019/54
Publisher: 
The United Nations University World Institute for Development Economics Research (UNU-WIDER), Helsinki
Abstract: 
We analyse income and expenditure distribution in China in a comparative perspective with India. These countries represent extreme cases in the relationship of inequality to both wellbeing indicators. Income is more highly concentrated than expenditure in India, especially at the top of the distribution. Both types of inequality are similar in China, although expenditure is more unequally distributed than income in urban areas. China has a much stronger correlation in individual ranks and levels between the two wellbeing distributions. As a result, expenditure inequality is higher in China than in India, but income inequality much lower. This results partially from differences in population composition, such as China being more urbanized and having smaller households, but mostly from differences in conditional income distributions, especially by attained education of the household head. We show that hybrid measures of wellbeing combining income and expenditure can be useful for such cross-country comparison.
Subjects: 
income
consumption
inequality
China
India
JEL: 
D31
N35
O15
Persistent Identifier of the first edition: 
ISBN: 
978-92-9256-688-3
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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