TY  - JOUR
AU  - Whalley,John
AU  - Xing,Chunbing
TI  - The Regional Distribution of Skill Premia in Urban China
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 16575
PY  - 2010
Y2  - December 2010
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w16575
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w16575.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
John Whalley
Department of Economics
Social Science Centre
University of Western Ontario
London, ON N6A 5C2
CANADA
Tel: 519/661-3509
Fax: 519/661-3666
E-Mail: jwhalley@uwo.ca

Chunbing Xing
Beijing Normal University
Beijing, China, 100875
E-Mail: xingchunbing@gsm.pku.edu.cn
AB  - We document and discuss the implications of a sharp increase in the regional dispersion of skill premia in China in recent years. This has previously been little noted or discussed. We use three urban household surveys for 1995, 2002, and 2007 and estimate skill premia at provincial and city levels. Results show an increase in the skill premium across all regions between 1995 and 2002, but only coastal regions show significant increases in skill premia between 2002 and 2007. For 2007, coastal regions also have much higher within region wage inequality and this contributes more to overall urban wage inequality than within region inequality of non-coastal regions. Using a fixed effects model at city level, we find that ownership restructuring is a significant factor in driving up skill premia during the first period, and that the ongoing process of China’s integration into the global economy plays a significant and regionally concentrated role in the second period.
ER  -