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Using the most recent statistical data, two U.S.-based geographers document the changes and level of regional inequality in China for the period 1978 2006, in order to shed light on whether recent government efforts toward inequality reduction have had observable effects. The paper reveals the spatial dynamics that underlie regional inequality by decomposing interprovincial inequality into its interregional and intraregional components, and investigating the growth trajectories of regions and provinces. The authors demonstrate that interprovincial inequality declined during the 1980s, increased in the 1990s, was relatively stable from the late 1990s to 21)04, and has declined thereafter. Through closer analysis, they show how the trend in interprovincial inequality up to 2004 has been shaped by countervailing patterns in (declining) intraregional inequality and (increasing) interregional inequality. Since 2004, however, the study reveals that both interregional and intraregional inequalities have declined, reflecting convergence in growth rates among provinces and among regions. Journal of Economic Literature, Classification Numbers: 131, 018, R12.9 figures, 1 table, 77 references, 1 appendix. Key words: China, interprovincial inequality, regional inequality, spatial inequity, five-year plans, per capita GDP, Theil index, Gini coefficient, coefficient of variation, convergence, divergence.

Byline: Robert Haveman (001), Edward N. Wolff (002) Keywords: demographics; poverty; wealth Abstract: American prosperity in the second half of the 1980s together with the booming economy of the 1990s created the impression that American households have done well, particularly in terms of wealth acquisition. In this paper, we develop the concept of 'asset poverty' as a measure of economic hardship, distinct from and complementary to the more commonly used concept of 'income poverty.' We define a household with insufficient assets to enable it to meet basic needs (as measured by the income poverty line) for a period of three months to be asset poor. The results reveal that in the face of the large growth in overall assets in the U.S. and a fall in standard income poverty over the period from 1983 to 2001, the level of asset poverty increased from 22.4 to 24.5 percent. We also find that asset poverty rates for blacks and Hispanics are over twice those for whites that asset poverty rates fall monotonically with both age and education that they are much higher for renters than homeowners and that by family type they range from a low of 5 percent for elderly couples to 71 percent for female single parents. Author Affiliation: (001) University of Wisconsin--Madison and Research School of Social Sciences of Australian National University, Canberra, Australia (002) Department of Economics, New York University and Jerome Levy Economics Institute of Bard College, New York, NY, USA Article History: Registration Date: 26/08/2004

INTRODUCTION The pattern of wealth and income inequality during the process of development of modern economies has attracted enormous attention since Kuznets (1955) formulated his famous inverted U-curve hypothesis. Wealth [...], This paper presents new homogeneous series on top wealth shares from 1916 to 2000 in the United States using estate tax return data. Top wealth shares were very high at the beginning of the period but have been hit sharply by the Great Depression, the New Deal, and World War II shocks. Those shocks have had permanent effects. Following a decline in the 1970s, top wealth shares recovered in the early 1980s, but they are still much lower in 2000 than in the early decades of the century. Most of the changes we document are concentrated among the very top wealth holders with much smaller movements for groups below the top 0. 1 percent. Consistent with the Survey of Consumer Finances results, top wealth shares estimated from Estate Tax Returns display no significant increase since 1995. Evidence from the Forbes 400 richest Americans suggests that only the super-rich have experienced significant gains relative to the average over the last decade. Our results are consistent with the decreased importance of capital incomes at the top of the income distribution documented by Piketty and Saez (2003), and suggest that the rentier class of the early century is not yet reconstituted. The paper proposes several tentative explanations to account for the facts.

This article discusses how wealth is distributed in societies. The author examines the pattern of distribution originally discovered by Vilfredo Pareto and the ways in which the degree of wealth concentration can be influenced.

Tax returns on which income of $200,000 or more is reported totaled 1.3 million in 1995. Returns are classified as high-income using two different income concepts: adjusted gross income (AGI) and expanded income. The number of returns classified as high-income has increased at a faster rate than the total returns filed. From 1994-1995 there was a 2.0% increase in total tax returns, a 14.7% increase in high AGI returns and a 14.3% increase in high expanded-income returns. Nontaxable high-income returns are discussed.

In 1992 the number of adults with gross assets of at least $600,000 was 3.7 million, or just over 2.0 percent of the population and 28.0 percent of the total U.S. personal wealth. In 1995, there were 4.1 million individuals with gross assets of at least $600,000. The growth between 1992-1995 is attributed to modest inflation. After adjusting for inflation, the number of wealth-holders has declined since 1989, the last year of published Statistics of Income.

This article introduces recent reports on the quality of the Health and Retirement Survey's data regarding the relationships between wealth, income distribution, retirement planning, health status, race, labor force participation, and family structure.

Estimates of personal wealth using the 'estate multiplier technique' and federal estate tax returns suggest that in 1989 some 3.4 million Americans, less than 2% of all adults, had gross assets of at least $600,000. With net worth over $4.8 trillion, they accounted for 25-30% of the nation's personal wealth. Women comprised 41.8% of top wealthholders. Real estate made up the largest percentage of top wealthholders' assets at 31%, followed by corporate stock at 26%. From 1982-1989, the number of top wealthholders grew by 38.5%, and the value of their net worth increased by 77.6%.

Individual income tax returns with adjusted gross income (AGI) of over $200,000 in 1989 numbered 786,063, or 814,152 using the expanded income concept. The share of all tax returns comprised by high-income returns has increased every year since 1977. In 1989, high-income returns accounted for 0.701% of all returns for AGI and 0.726% for expanded income. No US tax liability accrued for 0.138% of the high-AGI returns; there was no worldwide income tax liability for 0.126%. Data on size of income, distribution of tax levels, characteristics of nontaxable returns and reasons for nontaxability are also presented.

This report present estimates of fixed reproducible tangible wealth in the United States. These estimates, which cover net stocks of privately owned and government-owned durable equipment and structures and of [...]

TABLES 1-20 present estimates of fixed reproducible tangible wealth in the United States for 1989-92. These estimates, which cover the stock of privately owned and government-owned durable equipment and structures [...]

THIS ARTICLE presents revised estimates of fixed reproducible tangible wealth in the United States for 1925-90. These estimates, which over the stock of privately owned and government-owned durable equipment and [...]