Trade-Offs between International and National Inequality? Chinese Public Opinion towards Income Inequality

• In Event: Chinese Domestic Policy and International Challenges

Abstract

Macroeconomic growth has important consequences for the national, as well as international, distribution of wealth and income. Even though aggregate welfare gains on the national level can reduce economic inequalities vis-à-vis other countries, periods of rapid economic growth have the potential to increase domestic income inequality. When domestic income inequality is increasing, are citizens’ attitudes towards domestic inequality shaped by such international concerns? And are individuals more likely to accept rising levels of domestic inequality when international inequality becomes lower? Whilst views towards income inequality within a country have been widely studied, much less attention has been paid to changes in income and wealth distribution between countries. I argue that changes in the international distribution of wealth shape views towards domestic income inequality. With pre-registered, original and novel survey experimental data from the People’s Republic of China, a country which has in the past few decades experienced the most significant changes in macroeconomic growth and domestic income distribution, I explore (1) how views towards domestic income inequality are shaped by changes in international wealth distribution and (2) how these effects are moderated by socio-economic individual-level variables, such as gender, age, education and income-levels.

Author

• Tanja Schweinberger, University of Groningen