On 27th May 2021, the concluding report of Prof. Yang Canming, President of ZUEL and Director of IIDPF, "Narrowing the Income and Wealth Gap in China" was successfully held at Room 603, Wenquan Building. The project reviewers include: Professor Wu Junpei from Wuhan University, Professor Xu Changsheng from Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Professor Li Xiaoping from Zhongnan University of Economics and Law, Professor Luo Zhi from Wuhan University and Professor Zhang Kezhong from ZUEL. Group members Professor Sun Qunli and Professor Lu Yuanping attended the presentation. The report was chaired by Professor Lu Yuanping, Executive Vice Director of IIDPF.
At the opening of the meeting, President Yang Canming first expressed his heartfelt gratitude to the experts and scholars of the review team for their arrival, and introduced the research done on the project since its establishment in 2016 to the experts. Subsequently, on behalf of the project group, Professor Sun Qunli made a presentation from five aspects: the research background and significance of the project, the main research content, the innovation, the process of implementing the project and the phased research results. He pointed out that the innovation of this topic was reflected in four aspects: firstly, to sort out and summarise the causes and consequences of the income and wealth gap; secondly, to study the role of fiscal expenditure on people's livelihood in narrowing the income and wealth gap between urban and rural areas; thirdly, to identify the income and wealth distribution effects of fiscal precision poverty alleviation; and fourthly, to study how to narrow the income and wealth gap from the perspective of governance of the hidden economy.
Subsequently, Professor Sun Qunli presented the main research content of the topic in eight aspects: analysis of the current situation of income and wealth distribution gap, measurement and decomposition of income gap, measurement and decomposition of wealth gap, analysis of the formation mechanism of income and wealth distribution gap, financial livelihood expenditure and urban-rural income and wealth gap, income and wealth distribution effect of financial precision poverty alleviation, hidden economic governance and narrowing income and wealth gap, and policy suggestions for narrowing income and wealth distribution gap, where he also detailed the phase findings.
After listening to the report of the group, the review team experts fully affirmed the work done by this group and expressed their respective opinions. Professors Zhang Kezhong, Luo Zhi and Li Xiaoping considered it innovative to introduce the issue of wealth distribution in this topic. Professor Wu Junpei believes that the project's insistence on the implementation of the income and wealth distribution questionnaire is invaluable. Professor Xu Changsheng believed that there has been a lot of theoretical and empirical analysis on the basis of investigation and the research results were rich. In conclusion, the experts agreed that, against the background of "common prosperity" to which the Central Committee of the Party attaches great importance, the topic has strong foresight and practical significance, with clear points of innovation and well-structured content, and the resulting research results have great reference value for decision-making. After a comprehensive review by the expert group, the subject was assessed as excellent.
The project "Narrowing the Income and Wealth Gap in China" was approved by the Propaganda Department of the Chinese Communist Party in 2016, and was completed in March this year after nearly five years of in-depth and detailed research. During the research process, members of the team collected a wide range of domestic and international research materials and conducted a series of research seminars in China and abroad, obtaining a wealth of data and information. During this period, the group held several working meetings and hosted academic conferences to listen to the advice of experts and scholars in related research fields in China and abroad. The research results have provided a scientific basis for decision-making on reforming China's income distribution system and narrowing the gap between income distribution and wealth distribution.