Editorial

This general issue brings to you six very solid empirical studies that cover a wide range of policy issues including social inequality, environmental government, financial policy, disaster management and fiscal policy. Written by Dongshu Ou, the first article provides useful analytical insights into earnings inequality of immigrants in Hong Kong and the differences across genders. This is a timely contribution, given the rising social attention in Hong Kong with regard to the socioeconomic well-being of immigrants. The use of longitudinal census data enables the author to examine if structural changes in the Hong Kong economy have left any impact on income gap. It first finds that the increase in overall inequality is not primarily explained by immigration per se, but by the within-group variance of natives, and in fact, the reduced share of Chinese immigrant employees has actually contributed to the lowered inequality among men; although the analysis on women’s earnings inequality first appears a function of between-group variance, the author has revealed that this is due to the existence of large population of foreign domestic helpers in Hong Kong. The pattern of wage inequality disappears once this factor is removed. Ou’s study offers a series of evidence-based insights into the changing trends of income inequality in Hong Kong by accounting for the factor of immigration.