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Federalism and Inequality
In China decentralization has been widely acknowledged as a driving factor for the country’s economic take-off. At the same time, however, income inequality increased as well. Studies investigating the relationship between China’s market preserving federalism and income inequality are scarce and inconclusive. One possible reason for the ambiguous result is the focus on provinces. Decentralization in China, however, empowered mainly the lower level governments. The proposed research project aims to mitigate this shortcoming and focuses on the effects of government competition on inequality at the prefecture and county level in Zhejiang Province. The purpose of our study is to shed insight whether and how the redistribution of competencies between the central and the local administrations widened the income gap between counties.
[This project was awarded a research grant from the Swedish Research Council (2007-2008).]
Last modified 9 Nov 2010