Question

You are working with a small sample of 2005 population census of China. You would like to study the income distribution of China.

1. Preparing your data in Stata. Download the dataset census2005_ps1.dta from Canvas
   • Constrain you working sample to adults age 18-65;
   • Drop observations with income marked as “99999”;
   • Calculate the share of individuals aged 18-65 with income equal to 0.
2. Using descriptive statistics, distribution histogram with normal-density plot, density curve to check whether or not the income in China is normally distributed. How about log income? Briefly interpret your results.
3. Suppose the log income in China is normally distributed with mean 6 and Std. Dev. 1
   • What is the probability that an adult aged 18-65 with a job has income of more than 1500?
4. You would like to compare the income information from census with statistics reported by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) at the province level. Cityvar.csv reports GDP and unemployment rate by province in 2005.
   • Load Cityvar.csv into Stata. Save it as a dta file to your local disk. (Hint: the command of importing non-dta files into Stata is import delimited "filename", clear)
   • Calculate the average income of individuals aged 18-65 (excluding zero income individuals) and the share of individuals with zero income at the province level. (Hint: you could use the collapse command in Stata. )

Sample code:

replace income=. If income==0 gen income_zero = 0

replace income_zero =1 if income==.

collapse (mean) income income_zero, by (province_code)

• Merge the collapsed census data with the converted file of cityvar.csv (type “help merge” in Stata for practices of merging in Stata). Draw a scatterplot of average income and GDP at the province level using (type “help twoway scatter” in Stata for the right syntax). Briefly interpret your results.
• Draw a scatterplot of census share of zero income and unemployment rate (unemployment_rate). Briefly interpret your results.

Answer 1

IELTS Writing Task 1 #168

IELTS Tip

• Study the data before you begin to write.
• Make sure you have identified the most important aspects of the data.
• Organise your writing around the important aspects of the data.
• Describe those aspects, referring to the data in detail to illustrate what you are saying.

You should spend about 20 minutes on this task.

The chart below gives information about global population percentages and distribution of wealth by region.

Summarise the information by selecting and reporting the main features, and make comparisons where relevant.

Write at least 150 words.

Model answer

The chart compares population shares in various regions of the world with the distribution of wealth in these same regions. It can be seen that wealth is heavily concentrated in North America, Europe, and high income Asia-Pacific countries which together account for almost 90% of global wealth.

Even though North America has only approximately 6% of the world's population, it boasts nearly 34% of global wealth. A similar situation can be seen in Europe, which has 15% of the global population but 30% of global wealth, and high income Asia-Pacific countries with 5% of the world's population but 24% of its wealth.

In contrast, the overall share of wealth owned by people in Africa, China, India, and other lower income countries in Asia is considerably less than their population share, sometimes by a factor of more than ten. This is most striking in India, where 16% of the world's population own only 1% of the world's wealth and in China, which has the highest percentage of global population (24%) but only 3% of the world's wealth.

The chart below gives information about global population percentages and distribution of wealth by region.

Summarise the information by selecting and reporting the main features, and make comparisons where relevant.