Differences In Family Wealth Of Chinese Urban Households

Since the reform and opening up,the economy of our country has realized the transformation from a planned economy to a market economy.The wealth of the residents' families has been rapidly accumulated,the wealth gap continues to widen.Real estate has played an increasingly important role in household wealth as home prices have soared in recent years.Since 1998,China has fully implemented Housing Reform,and most urban families have acquired their own houses during the reform.The huge difference in family wealth caused by the very few people owning their own properties under the planned economic distribution system has been rectified,but it also created inequities in the distribution of wealth.This paper focuses on the Housing Reform House and wealth difference.By using the CHIP urban survey data of 1995,1999,2002 and 2013 to measure and decompose the difference of urban household wealth,we measure the inequality and the changes of urban household wealth before and after the implementation of Housing Reform in 1998.A simple OLS regression was carried out on the "net wealth per capita","real estate value added" and "real estate quality" to analyze the factors that affect the accumulation of household wealth.Then,using mixed panel data to build Simulated DID regress,witch identify causal relationships between Housing Reform House and household wealth differences.The results showed that during 1995-2013 the difference of urban family wealth in our country showed a trend of first narrowing and then expanding.The narrowing of real estate differences between 1999 and 2002 can partly explain the narrowing of urban household wealth differences during this period.Household holdings prompted a significant increase in wealth,and Housing Reform House expand this impact by the discount.Ownership and occupation also have an impact on the accumulation of family wealth.The results of simulated DID regression confirmed that Housing Reform House itself,while correcting some of the wealth differences,caused the inequality of wealth distribution.For the intervention group's family affected by the policy,the Housing Reform House significantly promoted its wealth appreciation,thus differentiating it from the control group's family.In the early period of Housing Reform,the value added of houses was low,and the role of house wealth differences was mainly rectified.However,with the rapid appreciation of real estate,the inequality caused by Housing Reform House appeared and continued to expand.The current performance of the Housing Reform House is exacerbating the polarization of wealth.