Trade, employment, and inequality in postreform China

The paper uses provincial-level Chinese foreign trade statistics, and a 1981 World Bank input-output table for China, to explore the impact of economic reform on employment, trade, and income inequality. The author concludes that trade increases regional inequality, and that 1981 trade decreased total employment in China, but that by 1985, due largely to the agricultural response to reform, net trade had become jobcreating.