ABSTRACT
The status of resident income distribution, as one of the economic reform and economic development achievements, not only constitutes an important system standard that assesses the result of reform and development, but also will speed up or delay the progress of economic reform and economic development. The survey data on the income of urban and rural residents in 1988, which the Income Distribution Project Team acquired, has provided an experiential grounding for judging the basic income distribution pattern in China. The study of the income distribution of urban residents in China may be conducted in a context where the two major systems, namely planning and market, and two different regulatory mechanisms coexist and interact with each other. If the income distribution pattern of urban residents results from the coexistence and interaction between the planning mechanism and market mechanism, then the income distribution pattern of rural residents is the concrete reflection in economic development.
