A Review Of The Research On China's Income Distribution In English Literature

After reform and opening up, China has made great achievements, but also theincome gap quickly widened. From the beginning of China's reform and openingup, the problem of income disparity has drawn some attention of foreign scholarswho are interested in the development of third world countries. In the 1990's, theproblem caused by the income disparity not only draws attention of foreign scholarsbut also domestic scholars'. Different scholars live in different environment and theystudy this problem from different angles. Therefore, on the problem of incomedisparity, English literature and Chinese literature has some commonplace. Throughthe introduction of this paper, we found that the English literature mainly focus onthe quantitative analysis of income disparity and from the unique perspective toanalyze the reasons of china income gap. And the international comparative studiesin English literature have promoted the further development of economic theory.Chinese literature on the problem of income disparity is in more detail. Besides thequantitative analysis of income disparity in China, there is also qualitative analysisand some discussion about whether China's current income gap is too large andwhether there is polarization. From more specific perspective, Chinese scholarsinvestigate the reason of China's income disparity and the influence of it.By comparison we discovered that the estimation of current situation anddevelopment trend in English literature are the same with the opinion of Chineseliterature, that is: since the reform and opening up, China's income gap continued towiden. In the beginning of the reform, Gini coefficient is below 0.2 and now isabove 0.4. Urban-rural income gap and the gap among eastern, central and westernregions are most important part of China's income gap. Therefore, English andChinese literature has paid more attention to the influence of system on urban-ruralincome gap and the income gap among eastern, central and western regions.System's defects are considered as the basic reason for impeding the market systemspontaneous adjusts the income gap. The household registration system and the"scissors" policy are considered as the main causes of urban-rural income gap. After the reform and opening up, the influence of FDI became an important direction ofChinese and foreign scholars' research. Foreign capital promotes regional economicdevelopment. But due to the degree of foreign investment is different, different parts'economic growth rate are different, thus deepening the regional income gap. As forthe personal income gap, human capital is an important research direction. Withincities, the reform of state-owned enterprises caused a group of workers' incomelevels drop rapidly. The entry of FDI causes skilled workers' wages increase but theunskilled workers' wages decrease.The problem of ethnic minority-majority income gap is first researched byGustafsson, Chinese literature has not shown any research in this field. Gustafssonthinks that the ethnic minority-majority income gap is mainly caused bygeographical factors. In the northwest and southwest regions, the minorities arepoor; and in northern-eastern region, the ethnic minorities are more affluent. So thelocation is the major cause of ethnic minority-majority income gap. Englishliterature is also in the forefront of the international income disparity comparisons.Compared with the United States, Russia and other countries, they make us deeplyknow about China's current income situation; compared with India, Indonesia, andother developing countries, they give a reference for those developing countries.The research on the impact of income gap on China's future economic developmentin Chinese literature reflects the purpose of domestic scholars' research, that isprovides theoretical information and make policy recommendations for China'seconomic growth. Excessive income disparity has produced many negative effectson consumption, investment and industrial structure. So which mode should wefollow: "first growth, after the distribution," or "first distribution, after growth" isstill a bone of contention.Although the English literature is too concentrate on the technical analysis andneglect of the reality. However, the advanced measurement methods used in Englishliterature and the unique perspective of observation provide a new theoreticalreference for the study of China's income disparity.