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This paper proposes the concept of green institutional environment, and constructs China's green institutional environmental system from the three dimensions of green supervision and public institution, green standardized institution and green accounting institution. Based on the relevant data from 2007 to 2017, this paper simulates China's green institutional environmental index through the Functional Data Analysis method and the functional entropy weight method. The results show that, first, there is a general upward trend in China's green institutional environmental index, with a range of [0.2–0.8]; the minimum value of this index is 0, and there is no maximum value. The larger the value, the higher the level of green institutional environment. Second, at the present stage, China's green standardized institution is relatively well-developed, accounting for the largest weight (i.e., [0.932–0.940]) in the green institutional environmental index system; the green accounting institution plays a supporting role, with a weight of [0.030–0.040], due to the fact that the Chinese government has made great efforts to implement policies at this level; the development of green supervision and public institution is under-developed and has little influence on the green institutional environmental index, with a weight of [0.0285–0.0305]. Finally, the proposed green institutional environmental index remains robust when equalizing the weights of the three dimensions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Existing studies rarely focus on the quantitative measurement of the multi-dimensional return to poverty in Chinese rural households. Therefore, this paper assessed the dynamic evolution of multidimensional return to poverty in Chinese rural households based on the China family panel studies during 2010–2018, applied methods like artificial neural network and multi-dimensional measurement model. Here are the results: (1) Chinese rural households' multidimensional return-to-poverty index dropped significantly from 0.0567 in 2012 to 0.0425 in 2018, mainly due to the decreased poverty returning rate. (2) Annual net income per capita was a major contributor to the decrease of multidimensional return to poverty, followed by four indicators in health dimension—adult health, out of pocket healthcare payment, health insurance, and senior and children health. (3) Chinese rural households' multidimensional return-to-poverty index manifested great spatial heterogeneity—increasing from Eastern China, to Central China, then to Western China. In the end, this paper proposed policy suggestions on preventing poverty returning and promoting common prosperity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper measures the human development indices of 31 inland provinces (municipalities) in China in a continuous time series during 2000–2017 according to the 2010 HDI compilation method. It uses a geographically and temporally weighted regression model for conducting an empirical study on the effects of R&D investment and network penetration on human development in each province (municipality) of China. There is significant spatial and temporal heterogeneity in the impact of R&D investment and network penetration on human development across provinces (municipalities) in China due to differences in resource endowments and economic and social development. For R&D investment, eastern provinces (municipalities) have mostly positive effects on human development, and central regions have mostly weak positive or negative effects. In contrast, western provinces (municipalities) show different development paths, with weak positive effects in the early stage and significant positive effects after 2010. Most provinces (municipalities) show a continuous and increasing positive effect for network penetration. The marginal contributions of this paper are mainly in improving the shortcomings in research perspectives, empirical methods, and research data in the study of human development influencing factors in China relative to the study of HDI itself in terms of measurement or application dimensions. This paper constructs a human development index for China, analyzes its spatial and temporal distribution, and explores the impact of R&D investment and network penetration on human development in China, with the hope of providing lessons for China and developing countries to promote the level of human development and cope with the pandemic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper redefines the connotation of China's human development in the context of the new development concept and high-quality development, and constructs the China Human Development Index (CHDI) indicator system accordingly. Then, based on the inequality adjustment model and DFA model, the human development level of each region in China from 1990 to 2018 is measured, and the spatial and temporal evolution characteristics of China's CHDI and the current situation of regional imbalance are analyzed accordingly. Finally, LMDI decomposition technique and spatial econometric model were used to study the influencing factors of China's human development index. The results show that: (1) The weights of the CHDI sub-index estimated by the DFA model have good stability, and it is a relatively good objective weighting method. (2) Compared with the HDI, the CHDI in this paper can better reflect the level of human development in China. (3) China's human development has made great achievements and has basically achieved the leap from the low human development level group to the high human development level group. However, there are still significant gaps between regions. (4) From the results of LMDI decomposition, the livelihood index is the most important driving index of CHDI growth in each region. From the results of spatial econometric regressions, there is a strong spatial autocorrelation of China's CHDI among the 31 provinces. GDP per capita, financial education expenditure per capita, urbanization rate, and financial health expenditure per capita are the main influencing factors of CHDI. Based on the above research findings, this paper proposes a scientific and effective macroeconomic policy with important reference value for promoting the high-quality development of China's economy and society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the past two decades, China has undergone a rapid urbanization process. As such, determining the current status of the quality of life in Chinese cities and how to improve it has become a common concern for all sectors of Chinese society. This paper employs a combination of city-level macro data and individual-level micro data to construct a quality of life evaluation system that contains 9 dimensions and 35 secondary indicators. The quality of life of 194 cities in China has been further assessed using the Pena distance method (DP2). The study found that there are significant regional differences in the quality of life in Chinese cities, with the quality of life in China's large cities being significantly higher than that in small and medium-sized cities. The analysis of Ivanovic discrimination coefficient shows that social security, culture and education and infrastructure are the most important factors affecting the quality of life in Chinese cities. Spatial mismatch analysis reveals that the quality of life and subjective well-being differ significantly in Chinese cities. In addition, this paper provides policy recommendations to improve the quality of urban life in China and to reduce the imbalance in the quality of life between regions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to explore the multidimensional poverty of the migrant workers. This paper also analyzed the migrant worker's household registration differences and multi-period analysis of the migrant workers. China Family Panel Studies (CFPS), a household and social tracking survey data conducted by the Institute of Social Science Survey, was used in this article. Income, health, education, social security, living standards, and urban intergration were considered Multidimensional Poverty. This paper combines the A-F multidimensional poverty method and Foster's duration analysis method to construct a long-term multidimensional poverty index. Our results show that the long-term multidimensional poverty situation of the migrant workers is not severe but is mainly concentrated in certain dimensions and specific indicators. However, the long-term multidimensional poverty of the migrant workers is a persistent problem. Although the situation is gradually improving, the long-term negative impact of multidimensional poverty on individuals is increasingly prominent. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

According to the existing literature on public management, many factors affect popular satisfaction with the government (referred to as "government satisfaction"), one of which is the use of e-government. Particularly, many e-government proponents regard increasing government transparency as an important way to improve government satisfaction. To test the validity of this assertion, this paper uses an Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) regression model to analyze survey data on individuals' e-government usage frequencies in China and their satisfaction with the local government during the COVID-19 pandemic. We find that people can rationally and consciously evaluate governments and make decisions by using the government performance information that they know about. This conscious and rational process is also mixed with the impact of some irrational and emotional factors, which is consistent with the concept of the "framing effect." This paper identifies local government transparency as the mediating variable in the relationship between the use of e-government and government satisfaction and public knowledge of local government performance in COVID-19 outbreak control as the moderating variable in the relationship between local government transparency and government satisfaction. Since the mediating effect of local government transparency is significantly different from those of overall and central government transparency, government transparency at different levels plays a role of the above-mentioned "frame." [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The determinants of health are influenced by genetics, lifestyle, social environment, medical conditions, etc. As an informal system, social capital plays an increasingly recognized role in individual health. The purpose of this paper is to discuss the direct and indirect effects of social capital on individual health in China. Using cross-sectional data from the China Family Panel Studies 2016, this paper explores the effects of cognitive and structural social capital on individual health from a micro perspective. The results show that both types of social capital have significant positive effects on individual health, and this effect remains after endogeneity is considered. The two types of social capital show obvious heterogeneity in age samples, urban and rural samples and north–south samples. In addition, the mechanism analysis shows that the health promotion effects of the two types of social capital are mainly derived from the effects of informal finance and access to medical resources. Based on the above findings, this paper puts forward policy recommendations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Poverty is no longer a problem of income alone. Healthy poverty and capacity poverty have become key factors affecting the poverty reduction effectiveness. Based on "double cut-offs" multidimensional poverty identification method of Alkire and Foster (J Public Econ 95(7–8): 476–487, 2011), this paper proposes a "triple cut-offs" identification method of multidimensional poverty reduction effectiveness, and construct the chronic multidimensional poverty reduction index combined with chronic thinking of Foster (in: Addison T, Hulme D, Kanbur R (eds) Poverty dynamics: interdisciplinary perspectives. Oxford University Press, Oxford, pp 59–76, 2009). And this index can comprehensively and systematically measure the China's multidimensional poverty reduction effectiveness in terms of both poverty alleviation and poverty returning. In this paper, we find that China's chronic multidimensional poverty alleviation index is greater than the country's chronic poverty returning index, and the chronic multidimensional poverty alleviation/returning index in rural and western regions is greater than that in its cities and other regions in China. The chronic poverty alleviation of per capita net income and medical insurance have contributed a lot to the overall chronic multidimensional poverty alleviation of China's rural residents, while poverty returning caused by health and housing difficulties has contributed a lot (48.14%) to the chronic multidimensional poverty alleviation of the country's urban residents. These findings can provide more targeted guidance for poverty governance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The poverty alleviation effects of digital financial inclusion are widely recognized, while these effects are dependent on the financial environment. However, little is known about how the financial environment influences digital financial inclusion, which leads to a reduction in household multidimensional poverty. Using matching data from Peking University Digital Financial Inclusion Index of China and Chinese Family Panel Studies for 2012, 2014, 2016, and 2018, this paper estimates the impact of digital financial inclusion on household multidimensional poverty, considering the financial environment. The results show that: (1) Digital financial inclusion alleviates household multidimensional poverty and has significant alleviation effects on different dimensions of poverty. (2) Digital financial inclusion plays a particularly significant role in reducing household multidimensional poverty in China's rural areas and central-western regions. (3) Credit availability, social capital, and non-agricultural employment are important channels through which digital financial inclusion reduces household multidimensional poverty. (4) A single threshold effect governs the influence of the financial environment on the impact of digital financial inclusion on household multidimensional poverty. When the financial environment crosses the threshold value, the poverty reduction effect of digital financial inclusion is enhanced. For the components of the financial environment, a single threshold effect governs the influence of both traditional financial foundations and household financial literacy on the impact of digital financial inclusion on multidimensional poverty, whereas government financial supervision does so via a double threshold effect. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Migrants' socio-economic integration is a major theme in migration research, which can provide economic and cultural benefits. And it will contribute to social stability. The investigation from the spatial perspective should also be considered. This paper aims to examine the spatial differentiation of the socio-economic integration of migrants and identify its driving forces to provide crucial evidence and policy recommendations to urban policymakers and further improve migrants' socio-economic integration. Based on the latest China Migrants Dynamic Survey, this paper uses global Moran's I index, hot spot analysis and GWR model to explore spatial differentiation and driving forces of the socio-economic integration of 155,789 migrants in 291 cities at prefecture level and above in China. The results show that: (1) The socio-economic integration of migrants consists of five dimensions, which are economic integration, cultural integration, social security, social relation and psychological integration. Among them, psychological integration is the highest (73.16) and economic integration is the lowest (13.38). (2) The socio-economic integration of migrants is mainly influenced by their own characteristics instead of the destination characteristics. Four factors (age, education, length of stay and population growth rate) positively affect migrants' socio-economic integration, while three factors (inter-provincial mobility, proportion of tertiary industry in GDP, and ratio of teacher to student in middle school) negatively impact the socio-economic integration of migrants. (3) The socio-economic integration of migrants shows the distribution pattern of agglomeration. And the integration also presents a significant spatial heterogeneity. The driving forces of the socio-economic integration exhibit various zonal spatial differentiation patterns, including "E–W", "SE–NW", "NE–SW", and "S–N". Finally, some useful recommendations are given for improving migrants' socio-economic integration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Qualifying the official minimum of "Two no worries and three guarantees" (certainty of food and clothing, guarantees of compulsory education, basic medical care, and housing) is essential to evaluate the targeted poverty alleviation program since 2013 in China. Using the poverty monitoring dataset and the multidimensional poverty indicator system, the uneven dynamics and regional disparity of multidimensional poverty and its driving factors in poverty-stricken areas in China during 2014–2018 are explored in this paper. The incidence rate of multidimensional poverty was reduced by 61.72%, and the poverty reduction rate within the six dimensions ranged from 52.29 to 76.36%. Multidimensional poverty and its six dimensions displayed narrowing regional disparity. Impoverished and moderately poor areas shrank, whereas low-poverty areas expanded. All 22 provinces have become low-poverty areas in 2018. The contribution of each dimension to multidimensional poverty varies for different types at different stages. Income and expenditure contribute the most to poverty status, followed by transportation, housing conditions, education, communication, and medical care and health. The contribution of each indicator among different dimensions varied with different trends from 2014 to2018. This paper helps incorporate the official minimums of "Two no worries and three guarantees" into a more operational evaluation system to promote sustainable policies for governments at all levels by 2020 and beyond, as well as provide valuable references for poverty alleviation in other developing countries worldwide. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Chinese government redistributed houses, land and wealth across families and assigned an inheritable class identity ( chengfen) to each family in early 1950s. The government then implemented class-based discriminatory policies against the rich and middle class until 1978. This paper shows that individuals born after 1951 with rich class origins have significantly higher income and family assets per capita than those from the poor class in 2002. Moreover, those who were born after 1960 from rich class gained more years of education than others except for the descendants of the revolutionary class, after the abolition of the discrimination policy. Overall, the study provides evidence that intergenerational transmission of wealth status and education are not necessary flowing through the inheritance of physical capital. The paper further demonstrates that individuals with revolutionary background do not have lower economic outcome or educational attainment than those from the rich, suggesting that a new elite group emerges in contemporary China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses various reports published within the issue about Chinese quality of life including one by Yuk King Lau about the effect of work and family on the relationship between father and child, one by Vivian Lou about the social support of grandchildren in the lives of older people and one by Phoenix Mo and others about health promotion behaviors.

This paper studies the impact of regional cultural diversity of working cities on the income of rural workers. Using a nationally representative micro-dataset in China, and adopting dialect diversity at the city level as the indicator of regional cultural diversity, we find that regional cultural diversity has a highly significant hump-shaped effect on rural workers' incomes from the wage employment and self-employment, reflecting a trade-off between the beneficial and the detrimental effects of regional cultural diversity on rural workers' incomes. The results remain robust to the inclusion of a set of covariates, alternative estimation technique, alternative measure of regional cultural diversity, and a placebo test. We also find that the detrimental effect of diversity is weaker for high-educated rural workers, and the impact of regional cultural diversity remains stable in the short term. To address potential endogeneity, we employ an instrumental variable approach by using the river length of cities to instrument the dialect diversity, and the instrumented results confirm the conclusions. In addition, we provide empirical evidence that the cost and benefit of regional cultural diversity on the income of rural workers can be attributed to reduced social capital and increased creativity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the relationship between family size and intergenerational inequality in China. We construct a fuzzy non-parametric regression discontinuity design by the exogenous variation in fertility caused by the one-child policy. Our findings present that the one-child policy only results in a downward jump in urban fertility but does not significantly affect rural areas. The empirical results further suggest a negative correlation between family size and intergenerational inequality, but there is no evidence for the causal effect. The role of siblings in sharing risks, son preference, birth-order effect, more accessible student aids or loans and relaxed budget constraints are potential explanations for no causal effect. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite an established positive link among income, health, and social capabilities among older adults, the relationship mechanisms of these factors are understudied. Using the WHO Study on Global Ageing and Adult Health data and a capabilities approach, this paper provides new evidence on the effects of income (measured by total household income) and health (measured by physical and cognitive functioning) on the social capabilities of older adults (aged 55 or older) in China and the possible mediating role of social engagement in this relationship. Findings from the study show that both income and health showed consistent and positive effects on social capabilities of older adults in China, and the effects varied between rural and urban older adults. The mediation analysis results show that social engagement accounted for a substantial proportion of the effects of income and health on social capabilities, but income and health still had strong, positive direct effects of their own. In particular, social engagement was found to play important mediating roles in the associations between physical and cognitive functioning and the social capabilities of freedom of expression (9.46%) and the sense of safety (36.33%) among rural older adults. Findings from this study highlight the need for more social policies and services to enhance older adults' social engagement, income, and health conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper innovatively expands China's human development index under the background of development concept in the new era, constructs the index system of China's human development index (CHDI) with four core dimensions of "life span, education, income and sustainable development" and measures the human development level of 31 provinces and the whole country from 1990 to 2017. Using the method of exploratory spatial data analysis (ESDA), this paper studies the spatiotemporal evolution characteristics of CHDI in 31 provinces from 1990 to 2017 and discusses the mechanism of CHDI in China. The results show that: ① CHDI in eastern China is obviously ahead of other regions and there is a big gap in human development among different regions. CHDI of 31 provinces had positive spatial correlation, showing significant spatial aggregation effect. ② In addition to its own influencing factors, the CHDI of a province is also affected by the CHDI of its "neighboring" provinces. ③ Urbanization rate, per capita financial expenditure on education and the number of health professionals are the three main positive driving factors of China's CHDI and the per capita carbon emission is the main reverse driving factor. This study provides policy suggestions for improving the level of human development in China and realizing regional balanced development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The construction of smart cities may bring positive and negative effects simultaneously on citizens' perception of safety (CPS), while previous studies in the field of smart city construction paied significant attention to safety-related technologies but ignored CPS. Therefore, this work developed an indicator set consisting of five primary and eleven secondary indicators. A model integrating analytical network process and fuzzy comprehensive evaluation was used to evaluate CPS in smart cities. Nanjing, a pilot smart city in China, was adopted as the case to demonstrate the proposed evaluation methodology. The results showed that the CPS in Nanjing was at a positive level on the whole. The citizens held the highest CPS in medical treatment, while the CPS concerning information and food were weak. This paper would not only enrich the academic framework related to CPS, but also help the government formulate sustainable smart city construction strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using RUMiC data and a simple panel quantile regression method, this paper accounts for the time-invariant individual specific characteristics and investigates the heterogeneous effects of factors on the distribution of subjective well-being (SWB, measured by GHQ-12) in urban China. Comparing results from the pooled regression and fixed effect regression, we find that most results from pooled regressions are likely overestimated. Panel quantile regression results show that income affects the least happy 10 % group twice as much as the happiest 10 % people. Being unemployed brings down the happiness level by 0.97 points on average, but individuals with high SWB seem to be not significantly affected. The complete picture of the relationship between SWB and various factors would have been veiled without using quantile techniques. This paper therefore not only contributes to the happiness literature in China, but also adds evidence to stylized findings going beyond the average. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper estimates multidimensional poverty in China by applying the Alkire-Foster methodology to the China Health and Nutrition Survey 2000-2009 data. Five dimensions are included: income, living standard, education, health and social security. Results suggest that rapid economic growth has resulted not only in a reduction in income poverty but also in a reduction in multidimensional poverty in the last decade, both in terms of its prevalence and intensity. However, many challenges remain. There are wide disparities across provinces and between urban and rural areas, with poverty being 1.5 times higher in rural areas than in urban ones in 2009. Moreover, rising deprivation in education in rural and less developed provinces should also be a policymaking concern. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For decades, urbanization has been a major topic of discussion among academics and professionals when investigating issues such as social segregation, spatial inequality, and urban sustainability. However, little attention has been given to the relationship between social characteristics and the ever-changing development of urban spaces. This paper seeks to investigate progressive changes in the social stratification structure in Wuhan's urban development zone (UDZ) while focusing on their associated spatial transformations, based on census data of Wuhan in 1990, 2000, and 2010. To obtain this objective, the study will answer two key questions: (1) What are the characteristics of urban social spatial evolutions of Wuhan the second-tier city in China? (2) What are the mechanisms of social spatial evolution? And (3) what role does the social spatial evolution play in urban social planning and management? We used varimax rotated principal component analysis (PCA) to extract social dimensions along with ArcMap to enhance spatial analysis while visualizing the distribution of social factor scores. The results show that since 1990, the local population (particularly the aging population) has reflected a hollowing trend. Industrial relocation and population mobility have become the main social dimensions in the 1990s and 2000s respectively. The characteristics of socio-spatial transformations are from concentric rings as well as combinations of concentric rings, axial aggregations, and multiple clusters. These transformations are formed by the push–pull force of the large area and the centripetal and centrifugal forces inside the city. We have concluded that top-down systems dominate socio-spatial transformations in the early stages, while public participatory management plays a more important role in the later stages, which will become inclusive governance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we investigate the effect of digital finance inclusion (DFI) on household consumption inequality in China. Based on the biennial panel data of China Household Finance Survey from 2015 to 2017 and the county-level DFI index, we empirically analyze the impact of DFI on consumption inequality by using fixed effect model. We find that the development of DFI can significantly reduce the consumption inequality among residents. This is partly because DFI can reduce the income inequality among residents. And the development of DFI has different marginal impact on consumption expenditure for different residents, thus leading to the reduction of the residents consumption gap. We also find that, compared to the extensive usage and the degree of digitization, the intensive usage of DFI has larger effects on lowering consumption inequality. In addition, the effects of DFI on consumption inequality have significant heterogeneity, and they are relatively larger for residents in eastern regions, and for households with low debt-to-income ratios and for individuals with compulsory education. Therefore, it is necessary to attach importance to supporting construction in the western region when coordinating the development of digital inclusive finance. It is important to strengthen policy preference for residents with lower education levels in terms of school compulsory education and community public welfare education. Meanwhile, when developing the digital financial inclusion, we should focus on controlling the household debt-to-income ratio to prevent excessive debt growth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Intergenerational social mobility has been of interest to economists and sociologists in recent years. However, with the development of methodologies and applications, it has been found that studying income mobility and class mobility separately often led to some conflicting findings. The class mobility and income mobility of China, a major developing country, has attracted the widespread interest of economists and sociologists from around the world. In this article, we attempt to answer the following questions: Should these divergent findings of intergenerational income and class mobility be regarded as a result of the differing data problems faced by researchers seeking to investigate income and class mobility or as a result of their differing analytical approaches? Is there a significant difference between intergenerational class mobility and income mobility in China? Our own comparative analysis involves measuring the magnitudes and temporal trends of intergenerational class mobility and income mobility. By using China Health and Nutrition Survey data, this paper explicitly tests the differences in the intergenerational associations of the income table and the class table from the "local", "global", and "comprehensive" perspectives, and provides smooth estimates of trends of both social class mobility and income mobility. This empirical study demonstrates that there is strong evidence showing that China's class mobility and income mobility are not consistent in both fluidity levels and trend changes using the same data and same analytical approaches. Furthermore, there is a stronger association between fathers' class and children's class than between fathers' income and children's income, and the temporal trend of class mobility is more volatile than that of income mobility. This leads us to suggest that, in China, class may in general be a better indicator of socioeconomic status than one-shot measures of current income. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigated the dynamic relationship between ife expectancy (LE) and its inflencing factors including, health care, socioeconomic, and environment factors in Beijing City of China. Time-series data from 2000 to 2018 were collected and vector autoregression (VAR) modeling was performed. This study quantified the lagged effect of air pollution and socioeconomic factors on increased LE over the 19 years of the study period in Beijing. The results showed that a VAR model with optimum lag 3 was constructed between LE and three explanatory variables including per capita area of green land (AGL), the average wage of employed staff and workers (WAGE), and PM2.5. In addition, LE showed a decrease from its present value once the impulse of AGL and WAGE are given. In contrast, LE increase from its present value after the impulse of PM2.5 given in the ten-year period analysis. In sum, environment factors such as air pollution and area of green land are considered to be highly effective in influencing LE than socioeconomic factors in Beijing City. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides an overview of findings from a recent survey of quality of urban life (QOUL) in Hong Kong which focuses on: (a) individuals’ subjective assessment of their overall quality of life (QOL) and of a set of QOL life domains, and (b) their level of satisfaction for three levels of QOUL living domains: their housing, their neighbourhood, and Hong Kong as a whole. Differences between demographic and socio-economic groups are discussed. The paper also reports on preliminary results of multivariate modelling to identify factors that might explain variations in individual levels of satisfaction with their overall QOL and with the three levels of QOUL living domains. The Hong Kong survey of QOUL is compared to those of Brisbane and of the greater Detroit region to highlight differences between urban regions in the east and west. The results show that Hong Kong is still lagging far behind the two western regions in most aspects of the QOL life domains and the three QOUL living domains. The comparisons have implied that the differences between these urban regions are beyond east-west influence in the perception of quality of life and more attributable to disparities in urban environments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ending poverty in all its forms is the first of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Therefore, it is of great significance to study poverty in the context of sustainable development. After eradicating absolute poverty, constructing a long-term mechanism to solve relative poverty is an inevitable requirement for achieving common prosperity in China. Therefore, it is extremely important that relative poverty is accurately identified and quantitatively decomposed. This paper adjusts the Foster–Greer–Thorbecke poverty index to propose a new methodology for relative poverty decomposition comprising growth, dispersion, heterogeneity, and identification effect. Based on China Family Panel Studies data from 2014 to 2018, the empirical analysis reveals the contributions to relative poverty made by growth, dispersion, heterogeneity, and identification effects. Specifically, the growth effect reduces the incidence of relative poverty; dispersion effect worsens relative poverty by affecting the depth of poverty; the heterogeneity effect depends on the heterogeneous characteristics of the population; the identification effect aggregates relative poverty by acting mainly on poverty incidence. We also compare the four relative poverty effects in urban versus rural areas. The findings show that dispersion effect and heterogeneity effect are keys to the differences. In particular, dispersion effect differences arise from income disparities, while heterogeneity effect differences depend on heterogeneous characteristics such as education, health insurance, and migrant work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As a prevalent chronic disease later in life, hypertension affects physical health in older adults. In this paper, we investigated whether an integrated health care intervention improved health-related quality of life (HRQoL) and well-being among older patients with hypertension in rural China. An intervention focused on older patients with hypertension (395 participants in the intervention group and 394 in the control group) was implemented. In the intervention townships, the health care professionals from all three levels of health care institution work as a team and receive skills training and regular meeting, etc. Patients in the intervention group received health education and periodical follow-up interviews, etc. Patients' data including the blood presure, HRQoL and sociodemographic characteristics were collected at baseline (2016) and follow-up (2017). Symptom control and patient's compliance with healthy lifestyle were self-reported by participants using questionnaires. After the intervention, a decrease was observed in the number of patients reporting problems, such as anxiety or depression. About 31.4% of patients in the intervention group perceived that they had greater control over their physical conditions during the study. Although patients' health awareness and knowledge improved, their rate of compliance with a healthy lifestyle was low. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper estimates the extent to which childhood circumstances contribute to health inequality in old age and evaluates the importance of major domains of childhood circumstances to health inequalities in the USA and China. We link two waves of the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study in 2013 and 2015 with the newly released 2014 Life History Survey, and two waves of the Health and Retirement Study in 2014 and 2016 with the newly released 2015 Life History Mail Survey in the USA, to quantify health inequality due to childhood circumstances for which they have little control. Using the Shapley value decomposition approach, we show that childhood circumstances may explain 7–16 and 14–30% of health inequality in old age in China and the USA, respectively. Specifically, the contribution of childhood circumstances to health inequality is larger in the USA than in China for self-rated health, mental health, and physical health. Examining domains of childhood circumstance, regional and rural/urban status contribute more to health inequality in China, while family socioeconomic status contributes more to health inequality in the USA. Our findings support the value of a life course approach in identifying the key determinants of health in old age. Distinguishing sources of health inequality and rectifying inequality due to early childhood circumstances should be the basis of policy promoting health equity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although urbanization in China is growing at a fast pace, there is still a large section of population (45%) living in rural or remote locations. In this developing country with the world's largest population, the government's strict household registration (hukou) control policy results in less opportunity for children with rural hukou status to have access to adequate education resources. The aim of this study is to explore the individual and contextual factors that are conducive to rural students' academic resilience. We use data from the Chinese Family Panel Studies (2012 wave) that include 1729 Chinese children aged 10–15 years (boys 53.8%; girls 46.2%) from more than 25 provinces. Among them, 70.1% are from the rural area, 25.2% are of urban hukou, 4.7% are those with no hukou or foreigners, and 50.1% are primary school students. Through comparison between rural non-resilient and resilient groups, this paper finds different pathways for rural Chinese children's academic resilience. Having high parental expectation and attending key schools are important in the Chinese context while helping to check homework seems ineffective in improving Chinese rural children's academic performance. The findings provide empirical evidence that understanding resilience needs to take contexts and culture into consideration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Poverty remains one of the most serious chronic dilemmas facing civilization and economic development in the 21st century. How to accurately measure, identify and alleviate poverty have been urgent topics on different geographical scales for decades. Based on census data at the county level from 2000 to 2010 in China, principal component analysis was used to establish an integrated multidimensional poverty index (IMPI) for geographical identification of poverty-stricken counties using an indicators system guided by a sustainable livelihoods framework. Further cluster analysis, spatial analysis and a self-organizing map show obvious spatiotemporal heterogeneity of multidimensional poverty across the 2311 counties in China. The results demonstrate that the counties with higher IMPI are concentrated and conjointly distributed in southwest China, north of central China and southeast of northwest China in mountainous regions and plateaus. Longitudinal comparisons demonstrate that the degree of multidimensional poverty has relatively decreased across China from 2000 to 2010, but regional disparities continue to expand and new aspects are emerging. In addition, compared with 2000, the number of counties with multidimensional poverty in 2010 increased in northeast China and decreased in central China. Many counties have experienced generally increased levels in certain domains of poverty. The relative contribution of each indicator to the IMPI also provides important references for formulating and implementing poverty policy. Quantile regression was utilized to explore the application of the IMPI in assessing environmental inequality. The result indicates that many poverty-stricken and developed counties are exposed to poor air quality. The accurate identification of geographical and spatiotemporal patterns of poverty in China can lead to the implementation of anti-poverty strategies. This paper also offers new insights into poverty measurement for other developing countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In order to investigate the Asian Development Bank's (ADB) finding of increasing trend in income poverty in China since 2000, this paper studies income and multidimensional poverty in China between 2000 and 2011 using China Health and Nutrition Survey data. It is observed the ADB proposed approach, adjusted for vulnerability, demonstrates an upward trend in income poverty. Income poverty is decreasing, however, for the World Bank's poverty cut-offs ($1.25 or $1.90). To measure multidimensional poverty, along with income (with ADB's adjusted Asian poverty line and World Bank's poverty lines), other indicators such as health, education and living standards are considered in this paper. The evident disparities and diversities in rural and urban multidimensional poverty are further examined. Per capita net income, highest level of education and flush toilet are found to be major contributors to both rural and urban poverty. The rural–urban disparity in terms of mild and moderate poverty appears to have decreased in the period before 2009, however, there have been increases since then, and the gap in terms of severe poverty remained quite high in this decade. We find that food insecurity does not play a major role in the rural–urban disparity in poverty. In the recent period, health insurance has become more prominent in explaining urban destitution, while the rural population is found to be more vulnerable to income fluctuations. Our results also show long-term poverty to be highly influenced by health. Our findings raise questions about the adequacies in the provision of health insurance and the quality of education, particularly in rural China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the air quality ranking of China's Ministry of Ecology and Environment as a case, this paper examines whether the public ranking could stimulate the ranked cities to improve performance. The results show that the horizontal ranking, i.e., the relative position among the cities, significantly stimulates the cities to improve air quality. The stimulating effect is significant for all the three type of cities, i.e., cities with good, medium and poor air quality, and is the strongest for the cities with good air quality. However, the stimulating effect for air quality improvement is not enough to alter the air quality comparison among the cities. Compared to other cities, if a city is ranked relatively low in the last year, the air quality in the current year is still relatively poor. The inertia is particularly significant for the cities with poor air quality. The vertical ranking, i.e., if the rank of a city progresses or retrogresses, does not affect the air quality and air quality change of the city. Overall, public ranking is argued to stimulate performance improvement by seducing the competition among local governments, although the actual effect is still subject to the perception of local governments and their capacity to respond to the ranking. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper uses the Shapley method to decompose poverty changes by income source and growth-distribution-cost according to the history of China's poverty elimination policies in the last forty years. The analysis shows that economic growth contributed to most of the reduction in all periods. Increasing inequality has adverse effects on poverty elimination in that it makes people vulnerable to poverty, which bodes ill for future poverty alleviation. Wages explain most of poverty change for both the urban and rural areas in recent years and are the main reason for increasing inequality in rural areas. Agricultural income played a significant role in reducing rural poverty and inequality in early periods when China experienced many agricultural reforms. In the future, pro-poor growth, reducing inequality and building a relatively integrated urban–rural poverty alleviation system will be most important jobs for China's poverty reduction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The problem of urban decay in Hong Kong is getting worse recently; therefore, the importance of urban renewal in improving the physical environment conditions and the living standards of the citizens is widely recognized in the territory. However, it is not an easy task for the Hong Kong Government to prepare welcome urban renewal proposals because the citizens, professionals and other concerned parties have their own expectations which are difficult to be addressed all at the same time. Although it is impossible to satisfy all stakeholders concerning urban renewal, it is preferable to have proposals conforming to the interests of the majority and beneficial to the present and future generations. This paper adopts the analytic hierarchy process (AHP) to work out the most sustainable design proposal for an area undergoing urban renewal. AHP is a robust multi-criteria decision making (MCDM) method for solving social, governmental and corporate decision problems. Since there is a lack of published papers demonstrating a systematic and effective way for urban renewal proposal assessment, this paper attempts to fill this gap with the help of AHP. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The conventional model of intergenerational income mobility suggests child's income is a function of his human capital investment determined by parental income, which neglects the role of public investment. This paper aims to distinguish whether and how public investment affects intergenerational income mobility and who are the actual beneficiaries. Data used for analysis is from China Health and Nutrition Survey, and is precisely matched to provincial public investment data. To mitigate the potential biases, average income of at least three waves is adopted. Through investigations, this study finds public investment could promote intergenerational income mobility obviously but unequally. Middle-distributed income groups are found to benefit more from public investment than the upper and bottom tail of the income distribution. The opportunities for the middle-distributed income groups are fairly better, while it seems harder for individuals of the bottom income distribution to have a breakthrough. Positional changes between middle income groups and top income groups contribute largely to the intergenerational income mobility during the sample period. Regions with higher public investment present higher mobility as well. To promote intergenerational mobility, public investment should target more precisely at lower income groups. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Poverty is a major problem that has consistently impacted human development. The spatial characteristics of poverty are nonvolatile at the regional level and represent the primary factors underlying the spatial poverty trap. Previous research on spatial poverty has frequently attempted to theoretically demonstrate the relationship between the spatial distribution of socioeconomic factors and regional poverty by drawing poverty maps, whereas less attention has focused on geographic factors. The case of Miao–Dong Autonomous Prefecture of Qiandongnan in Guizhou Province, China, is examined herein. This paper proposes a theoretical framework for the mechanisms linking the geographical environment and regional poverty and then conducts a quantitative analysis of the spatial association and degree of influence of these mechanisms. A geographically weighted regression (GWR) is employed to analyse the explanatory ability of variables in local areas. The results show that the mean slope and road network density have the most statistically significant correlations with the town-level poverty headcount ratios in Qiandongnan. Specifically, mountainous regions with steeper slopes suffer from a higher poverty headcount ratio, and towns with higher road network densities have a lower poverty headcount ratio because of the convenience of transportation. Additionally, the GWR indicates the occurrence of spatial nonstationarity, which indicates that the nature and strength of the association between each geographic indicator and the poverty headcount ratio varies across the 201 towns, with a linear growth pattern observed from north to south. Moreover, the results of a correlation analysis demonstrate that land cover with different slope classifications is more related to the regional poverty headcount ratio than land cover without a slope classification. We expect that this paper will provide useful insights for incorporating geographical factors into the formulation of poverty reduction policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to establish a comprehensive evaluation system and to appraise healthcare development in China from 2002 to 2014. Statistical data of healthcare development from 2002 to 2014 were collected from China Health Statistical Yearbook. Selected evaluation indicators were used according to theories related to healthcare management and comprehensive evaluation. The evaluation system was constructed through principal component analysis (PCA) of time series. A hierarchical cluster analysis on 31 provinces was carried out for the classification. A total of four principal components were extracted through PCA. The 31 provinces were divided into six categories through hierarchical cluster analysis. Consequently, healthcare achieved a stable development in China from 2002 to 2014. The Healthcare Input Index, Healthcare Process Index, Healthcare Fairness Index, and Comprehensive Healthcare Development Index all increased at a stable rate, and the Public Health Service Index first declined and then increased. Generally, China’s healthcare development presented a distribution pattern which was observed to be high in Eastern China and low in the west, with a great gap among different provinces. The accumulated growth rate of healthcare in Middle and Western China was higher than that in Eastern China, whereas the regional gap of healthcare development decreased gradually. Healthcare is well developed in China but a significant regional gap and lack of fairness still exist. Thus, the central financial institution should increase inputs and support healthcare in less developed regions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper uses both objective and subjective indicators to investigate the impacts of coal mining on the wellbeing of host communities. It also looks at the relationship between these two measurements of wellbeing. Both objective and subjective indicators show that coal mining has no obvious impact on family income, but negative impacts on air quality. Subjective wellbeing indicators also reveal the negative impacts of coal mining on water safety, inflation rate, price of necessities and income disparity. The only positive impact associated with coal mining is the improvement of housing conditions, revealed by only objective indicators. Some objective indicators are good predictors of subjective wellbeing indicators (e.g. income and air quality) using both aggregated data and individual data, others not (e.g. housing and education). The inconsistency between objective and subjective indicators might be attributed to scope issues, scale discordance etc. This paper empirically confirms both sets of indicators are needed when measuring wellbeing, and illustrates approaches to examine the relationship between objective and subjective wellbeing indicators. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates income inequality in post-reform China using both national time series and provincial panel data from 1978 to 2011. We identify a Kuznets inverted-U relationship between economic development and income inequality and show that this relationship was driven by the process of urbanization. We estimate that the Kuznets turning point occurred in the mid-1980s, and argue that increased urbanization after the mid-1980s had the effect of narrowing income inequality but its effect was more than offset by other factors. In particular, we found that low productivity in agriculture relative to that of the economy as a whole (i.e., dualism) and inflation were significant contributing factors to income inequality. We also present evidence to suggest that secondary education and higher education may have different effects on income inequality at the national level and at the provincial level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The conventional equation of economic well-being with the gross domestic product (GDP) has dominated policy thinking for at least 50 years. However, a variety of authors have pointed to the social and environmental costs of economic development and called for more comprehensive and more representative measures of progress to be developed. Therefore, a variety of 'adjusted' indicators have been developed. The robustness and reliability of these indicators is still a contentious issue. But these attempts raise important questions about sustainable development and pose an important challenge to conventional thinking about the relationship between economic progress, well-being and sustainability. The Genuine Progress Indicator (GPI) is one of the indicators of measuring sustainable development. Apply it to Liaoning Province, this paper evaluates Liaoning's GPI from 1978 to 2011. GPI, Per Capita GPI and GDP of Liaoning are compared with each other. It is concluded that GDP and Per Capita GDP of Liaoning grow much faster than GPI and Per Capita GPI. Grouped all components of GPI into three categories (economy, environment and Social), it shows that social and environmental development lags behind economic growth in Liaoning. This paper is till now a unique application of GPI indicator in Liaoning and China's provincial level and also contribution to the continuing development of the methods and results for the Index of Genuine Progress Indicator (GPI). Policy implications are given finally. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Creative class refers to the demographic segment composed of intellectuals, knowledge intensive workers and artists in different fields. Creative class is of essential social significance in that its members are capable of booming regional economy through innovation. Rather few studies have empirically examined the neighborhood social determinants of intra-urban creative class concentrations (CCCs), especially in the developing countries. Using the case of Shanghai city in China, this paper characterizes the CCCs in relation to social tolerance and life quality supportive conditions (LQSCs) at district level. Data for CCCs are collected from Shanghai's Population Census (2010) at the district level. A set of social diversity indices (ethnic, education, income, marriage status, and birth place) are used as proxy for tolerance and LQSCs are described by a set of indicators from 8 domains (job chance, medical care, educational facilities, commutation, food resources, housing, leisure, and natural amenities). Multivariable linear regression is employed to identify the determinants of CCCs. Results show that both neighborhood social tolerance and LQSCs have significant influences on different categories of CCCs. In particular, creative class is attracted by the neighborhoods that are open and welcoming to the outsiders. In addition, creative class emphasizes accessible medical care, traveling convenience, elementary education institution, great housing choices, and more natural amenities in their neighborhood. The variance decomposition method demonstrates that neighborhood LQSC determinants are more important for the intellectuals, knowledge workers and total CCCs. For the artists, the neighborhood social tolerance determinants are more influential. Our study generates a set of neighborhood social indicators to understand the intra-urban CCCs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Assessment of the disaster resilience index (DRI) is an effective decision support tool for managing natural disasters. This study holds that disaster resilience is a dynamic process accompanied by coping capacity, adaptive capacity, and transformative capacity in different phases; therefore, we develop a three-dimensional capacity-based framework using seven indicators (including 38 subindicators) to map the multigoals for measuring resilience at the household level. Our data were acquired through questionnaire responses by 516 representative rural households in mountainous hazard-prone areas in Chongqing, China. The results reveal that more households are deemed "low resilience" and that geographical spatial differences exist in the DRI across the case regions. Several factors affecting the ability to survive, bounce back, and bounce forward from mountain hazards for rural households were found in China. The framework constructed in this paper offers a new perspective for a holistic understanding of disaster resilience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Good retirement planning requires accurate estimation of the time horizon, that is, the lifespan. People may overestimate or underestimate their lifespan and, as a result, under- or over-save for their retirement. Determining to what extent a person overestimates or underestimates their lifespan requires the separation of private information (e.g. family longevity history) and misinformation (e.g. misperception of one's related cohort life expectancy). This paper proposes a method to identify and separate the effects of private information and misinformation on one's subjective life expectancy. The method requires the person to provide their subjective life expectancy estimations for not only themselves but also for their peers. We apply the method to a sample of about 700 Chinese adults aged 40 and above. We find that misinformation leads the respondents to overestimate their remaining lifespan by 18% on average. We also find that private information leads the respondents in our sample to believe that their remaining lifespan will be 12% longer on average than their peers of the same age and gender. However, the dispersion of the individual estimates is large, meaning that some people may significantly overestimate their lifespan while others significantly underestimate. Also, as age increases, the relative importance of private information in the subjective life expectancy increases as compared to misinformation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 20 years, housing reform in China has transformed its urban housing system from housing welfare into a housing market, which has led to a unique housing stratification. Traditionally, housing status is considered an important indicator of social stratification while studies of residents' social satisfaction also consider housing status and stratification as important factors. Using national data from the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences–National Institute of Social Development, this paper investigates the status of urban household housing and its impact on individuals' social satisfaction. Latent Class Analysis method was used to identify four housing strata from multiple dimensions and analyze the social satisfaction among these strata. The results show that variables such as the type of residential community, housing status, housing assets, and household income have significant impact on urban households' social satisfaction. In particular, family income and number of housing units show a clear U-shaped characteristic curve. Latent Class Analysis shows that the housing strata of urban households can be divided into top, middle, sandwiched, and poor classes. Analyses of variance show that different housing strata have different attitudes about those social dimensions, and the sandwiched housing class's social satisfaction is relatively low compared with other housing strata. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the effects of the household registration threshold on peasant worker decision-making over acquiring urban hukou using 2258 peasant workers' data in China. The results demonstrate that the household registration threshold will significantly increase the peasant workers' willingness to obtain urban hukou, and increase the peasant workers' probability of acquiring the urban hukou of home province cities. In addition, China's household registration threshold plays a more significant role in metropolitan cities and eastern cities than in small and medium-sized cities and midwestern cities in terms of its impact on peasant workers' willingness to acquire urban hukou, and their urban hukou location intention. The degree of social integration's mediating effect is significant. Firstly, the degree of social integration reduces the positive effect of the household registration threshold for peasant workers acquiring urban hukou. Next, the degree of social integration influences peasant workers choosing urban hukou in the work city. To achieve improvement in the new urbanisation level of the household registration population, it is necessary to promote the integration of peasant workers and residents and decrease the household registration threshold for peasant workers' work cities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The social integration of the floating population is related to the quality of urbanization. Based on the China Migrants Dynamic Survey in 2017, a five-dimensional index system of physiological adaptation, economic integration, social adaptation, identity, and psychological integration is constructed to explore the floating population's social integration structure and path. The results show a close relationship between the floating population's five dimensions of social integration. Physical integration is the basis of survival, psychological integration is the highest level of integration, and economic integration is necessary for social integration. Economic integration can directly affect psychological integration and indirectly through social adaptation or identity path. In addition, economic integration first through a social adaptation intermediary and then through an identity intermediary to influence psychological integration remotely; by comparing the social integration status of the floating population and local residents, it is found that there is no significant difference between floating population and local residents only in physiological adaptation; in the high-level social integration dimension, there is a significant difference between floating population and local residents, and the floating population is not fully integrated into the local area, The phenomenon of "pseudo integration" exists in the social integration of floating population. The direction of urbanization development should be changed from quantity target to quality target. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A survey was conducted among 768 migrant workers working in urban cities in China finding out about their experiences over ten types of workplace bullying measures. This paper examines how the ex-ante choices of migrant workers in their choice of which region to work in, choice of how long to stay in their company, choice of level of education to receive, choice to transfer their hukou to the city of their workplace, and also their choice to be educated in the labor law, impact the intensity of workplace bullying experienced. Except for knowledge of the labor law, all other choices lessen workplace bullying in some of these dimensions but increases workplace bullying in others. For those with Junior High qualifications and above, the consistent result is that migrants who are more familiar with the labor law, are able to experience less workplace bullying across most of the ten domains. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper uses the Dual Cut-offs Approach to measure multidimensional poverty in China at the national, rural-urban, regional and provincial levels using the China Family Panel Studies data from 2010. Five dimensions and thirteen indicators are considered for the enumeration of poverty. It is observed that irrespective of cut-offs and weights, rural poverty in China is three to nine times of urban poverty. Social insurance, toilet and cooking fuel are the major indicators contributing to both rural and urban poverty. More urban households in the Western region are deprived, but urban poor households are deprived in more indicators in the Central region, and some Eastern provinces are poorer than some of the Central provinces. Furthermore, the paper identifies the provinces that contribute most to national poverty levels and finds the sources of poverty in those provinces. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Trends in inequality in China suggest that there has been a significant increase in inequality in the distribution of income from around 0.30 in 1980 to 0.55 in 2012. Research over the last two decades has focused on identifying the main drivers of the increase in inequality. The main objective of this paper is to examine the relationship between urbanization and income inequality in China using provincial level data over the period 1987-2010. Using a panel of data for 20 provinces collected from the Chinese Statistical Yearbooks for five selected years. The empirical analysis based on OLS, fixed and random effects models, show a robust inverted-U relationship between inequality and urbanization. A threshold rate of urbanization of 0.53 has been identified with the implication that provinces with levels of urbanization higher than the threshold will experience reductions in income inequality. The second objective of the paper investigates the role of urbanization and the rural-urban wage differential on provincial inequality. Based on data from a representative cross-section of six provinces covering the period 1987-2005, we find that well-developed or income rich regions tend to have lower rural-urban inequality and higher migrant inflows and the rural-urban wage gap make significant contributions to income inequality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]