Abstract
This paper examines the effect of the public sector and state-owned enterprises (SOEs) on wage inequality in urban China using China Household Income Project data. It applies quantile regression analysis, the Machado and Mata decomposition to investigate how urban wage inequality was affected by the changes in wage structure and employment shares of the public sector and SOEs. We find that since the radical state sector reforms designed to reduce overstaffing and improve efficiency in the late 1990s, urban wage gaps were narrowed due to the reduction in the employment share of the state sector; the wage premium of the state sector in comparison with the non-state sector increased significantly; and changes in the wage structure of the labour market caused the rise in urban wage inequality.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 29-45 |
| Number of pages | 17 |
| Journal | Journal of Chinese Economic and Business Studies |
| Volume | 12 |
| Issue number | 1 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - Jan 2014 |
| Externally published | Yes |
Keywords
- China
- SOEs
- counterfactual analysis
- public sector
- quantile regression
- urban wage inequality
- wage gaps
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Economics, Econometrics and Finance (all)
