Shujie Yao is chair of economics at the Middlesex University Business School. He was previously professor of economics at the University of Portsmouth and research fellow at the University of Oxford. He is author and co-author of five books and has published extensively in a great number of economics journals. He has worked in many less developed countries as international economic advisor to the World Bank, UNDP, European Union, Asian Development Bank and the Department for International Development (UK). He is an editorial member of Food Policy and co-editor of Journal of Chinese Economic and Business Studies. His current research is on economic growth, agricultural and rural development, income inequality and poverty.

• 1. Introduction  2. Economic Performance in Contemporary China: An Overall Assessment  3. Agricultural and Rural Development  4. Openness and Economic Performance  5. Decomposition of Gini Coefficients by Population Class and Income Source: A Spreadsheet Approach and Application  6. Rural-Urban and Regional Inequality in Output, Income and Consumption under Reforms  7. Regional Inequality and Diverging Club  8. Understanding Income Inequality in China: A Multi-Angle Perspective  9. Further Study on Inequality and Poverty Reduction  10. Unemployment and Uurban Poverty  11. Is Migration a Way of Escaping Poverty in China?

'This book offers serious academic research drawn from the author's own papers published in many academic journals. It's even accessible to readers with limited technical background and is a must for anyone even slightly interested in modern China.' - The China Journal'Yao provides a wide-ranging analysis.' - The China Journal