New papers on China and India

A flurry of new papers on China and India:

A paper by David Dollar, the World Bank country director for China, looks at the combination of rising affluence and increasing inequality in China. He argues that some rise in inequality was inevitable with the introduction of a market-based system in China. However, other factors, such as curbs on rural-urban migration, have probably exacerbated the problem. Dollar argues that the government’s recent attempts to rebalance the economy towards domestic consumption should help reduce these disparities.

Meanwhile, a piece by Sanjay Reddy, an assistant professor of economics at Columbia University, in New Left Review argues that China has performed relatively poorly in raising life expectancy over the past three decades. Unfortunately the whole paper is only available on the internet in exchange for payment.

Finally, a paper on India from the World Bank looks at the unusual combination of rapid economic growth and rising government indebtedness. The authors suggest the main factor in rising debt as a result of a reduction