Re-estimating national wealth inequality with incorporating the rich lists in China

Abstract

Using the two annual rich lists of Forbes and Hurun, this study estimated the parameters of Pareto distribution to describe the features of the top tail of the wealth distribution. The wealth inequality for the whole population was re-estimated by the combination of estimated Pareto distribution and household surveys, CHIP2013, CFPS2012 and CFPS2016. The robustness of estimated Pareto coefficients and the possibility of the rich missing from the lists were also discussed in detail. The wealth inequality for the whole population was estimated at different assumptions on the combination of the top tail of wealth distribution and the household survey. The wealth Gini in the CHIP and CFPS data were as high as 0.619 and 0.736. The estimated wealth Gini minorly increased by the combination with the top tail of wealth distribution by the relative criterion, while exceeded 0.8 by the absolute criterion.