Income Inequality and Civil Disorder: Evidence from China

Inequality of opportunity and mass incidents: Evidence from China

“…Wedeman (2009) adopted a narrower definition and showed that the number of ‘mass incidents’ in 2004 was over 74,000, and the number nearly doubled to 127,000 in 2008. These ‘mass incidents’ include small incidents involved only several participants and of very small social harmfulness (Yang et al., 2019). Although our dataset excludes small incidents that were not publicly reported, mass incidents known to the public have more influence on social stability (Cheung and Chan, 2010; Wedeman, 2009).…”

“…Secondly, when estimating the influence of inequality of opportunity on the occurrence of mass incidents, there may be a problem of endogeneity. However, since there is a time lag, mass incidents occurring in a county during the period 2005–2013 may be affected by its 2005 income inequality level, but not vice versa, reducing the endogeneity bias (Yang et al., 2019). After merging IO county‐level data, city‐level controls and mass incidents, our dataset used in the following analysis includes 1,209 counties in total.…”

“…Our current study is closely related with two recent papers. Yang et al (2019) studied the effect of total income inequality on mass incidents in China. The results show that in counties with higher income inequality, mass incidents tend to happen with a larger probability.…”

“…By modelling and analysing spatial data, Yang and Jensen (2015) found a positive and significant correlation between inequality and mortality. Moreover, inequality may reduce political stability (Alesina & Perotti, 1993;Benhabib & Rustichini, 1996), whilst increasing violence (Muller, 1985;Yang et al, 2019).…”

Is religion the ‘opiate of the masses’? Religion and political trust in China

“…High economic inequality causes people to attribute personal failures to structural factors, thus festering their resentment of the government. Empirical evidence shows that greater economic inequality gives rise to public grievance and potentially even rebellion against the regime (Lei, 2020; Yang et al, 2020; Zhou and Jin, 2018). The psychological mechanism underlying the effect of economic inequality on politics lies in a cognitive process in which income distribution is perceived as unfair.…”