Bjorn A. Gustafsson is Professor at the Department of Social Work, Goteborg University, Sweden. His research covers empirical studies on poverty, social assistance, the distribution of economic well-being and the welfare state, as well as the economics of immigration. He has published published widely in scholarly journals and been commissioned by many public authorities to write special reports or contribute to special reports. Professor Gustafsson coedited Changing Patterns in the Distribution of Economic Welfare, An International Perspective with Peter Gottschalk and Edward Palmer (Cambridge University Press, 1997) and Poverty and Low Income in the Nordic Countries with Peder J. Pedersen (2000). Li Shi is Professor of Economics in the School of Economics and Business at Beijing Normal University. He is one of China's leading scholars on inequality and poverty. His past positions include Director of the Center of Economic Transition and Development Studies at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. Professor Li's publications include several edited volumes, including China's Retreat from Equality (2001, with R. Zhao and C. Riskin), and Unemployment, Inequality and Poverty in Urban China (2006, with H. Sato). He has also served as a consultant to international donor organizations and has been a key contributor to China's Human Development Report. Terry Sicular is Associate Professor in the Department of Economics at the University of Western Ontario. She has also held posts at Stanford and Harvard Universities, and is a leading researcher on the Chinese economy. Her research has covered topics such as China's market reforms, rural labor and employment, capital flight, and inequality. She has published widely in scholarly journals, and served as a consultant to international donor organizations. Recent and forthccoming publications include The Urban-Rural Income Gap and Inequality in China, The Review of Income and Wealth (forthcoming, with X. Yue, B. Gustafsson, and S. Li), and Why Do Revolutions Succeed? The Role of Rational Choice in the Chinese Communist Revolution, Homo Oeconomicus (2004). Professor Sicular also edited Food Price Policy in Asia: A Comparative Study (1989).

• List of Tables and figures; Contributors; Acknowledgements; 1. Inequality and public policy in China: issues and trends Björn Gustafsson, Li Shi, and Terry Sicular; 2. Income inequality and spatial differences in China, 1988, 1995, and 2002 Björn Gustafsson, Li Shi, Terry Sicular, and Yue Ximing; 3. Growth and distribution of household income in China between 1995 and 2002 Azizur Rahman Khan and Carl Riskin; 4. Explaining incomes and inequality in China Yue Ximing, Terry Sicular, Li Shi, and Björn Gustafsson; 5. The distribution of wealth in China Zhao Renwei and Ding Sai; 6. Growth, inequality, and poverty: a comparative study of China's experience in the periods before and after the Asian crisis Azizur Rahman Khan; 7. What has economic transition meant for the well-being of the elderly in China? Edward Palmer and Deng Quheng; 8. Inequality in financing China's health care Wei Zhong and Björn Gustafsson; 9. China's emerging urban wage structure, 1995–2002 John Knight and Lina Song; 10. Unemployment, earlier retirement and changes in the gender income gap in urban China, 1995–2002 Li Shi and Björn Gustafsson; 11. What determines living arrangements of the elderly in urban China? Meng Xin and Luo Chuliang; 12. The impact of village-specific factors on household income in rural China Hiroshi Sato; 13. The redistributive impact of taxation in rural China, 1995–2002: an evaluation of rural taxation reform at the turn of the century Hiroshi Sato, Li Shi, and Yue Ximing; Appendix: the 1995 and 2002 household surveys: sampling methods and data description Li Shi, Luo Chuliang, Wei Zhong, and Yue Ximing; Index.

Review of the hardback: 'Although rapid widening income inequality in China is widely recognized as one of the country's foremost policy challenges, analysis of income distribution trends has been severely hampered by data weaknesses. This volume is a major step forward in providing policy-makers and analysts with the necessary reliable data on long-term trends in key indicators of income distribution from across China, including some particularly welcome new data from domestic migrants living in urban areas. That data provides the basis for a set of papers by an outstanding group of Chinese and foreign scholars, in which the linkages between recent trends and public policy - both the ways in which policy has influenced those trends, and the implications of these trends for current policy - are rigorously and imaginatively analyzed.' Bill Bikales, UNDP, China