Abstract
Wealth and income inequality in China have risen sharply over the past decades. This dissertation conducts a structural analysis of the sources of these inequalities, focusing on two key mechanisms: internal migration and health behaviour.The first part develops and estimates a dynamic discrete choice model of internal migration under China’s household registration (hukou). The model incorporates heterogeneous worker types and migration frictions. I show that the hukou-induced moving costs substantially reduce rural–urban migration flows. While these frictions compress wage inequality within cities—particularly between high- and low-skilled workers—they do so at the expense of rural residents’ welfare. Counterfactual simulations demonstrate that lowering migration barriers increases aggregate output but also widens urban wage dispersion, highlighting a fundamental equity–efficiency trade-off embedded in China’s spatial mobility regime.
The second part builds a life-cycle model with endogenous health capital and smoking behaviour. Individuals update their beliefs about smoking-related health risks over time and make forward-looking decisions regarding consumption, savings, and smoking. The model shows that smoking-induced health deterioration generates significant heterogeneity in health status, earnings profiles, and wealth accumulation over the life cycle. These dynamics contribute meaningfully to the observed wealth and income inequalities in China.
| Date of Award | 13 May 2025 |
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| Original language | English |
| Awarding Institution |
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| Supervisor | Se Kyu Choi (Supervisor) & Edmund Cannon (Supervisor) |
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