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A growing body of research documents the importance of studying households in the top one percent of U.S. income distribution because they control enormous resources. However, little is known about whose income—men's or women's—is primarily responsible for pushing households into the one percent and whether women have individual pathways to earning one percent status based on their income. Using the 1995 to 2016 Surveys of Consumer Finances, we analyze gender income patterns in the one percent. Results show that women's income is sufficient for one percent status in only 1 in 20 of all elite households. Although self-employment and higher education increase the likelihood that women will personally earn sufficient income for one percent status, marrying a man with good income prospects is a woman's main route to the one percent. In contrast, men's one percent status is most closely associated with their own characteristics (self-employment and higher education). Importantly, the gender gap in personally earning one percent income has not narrowed since the mid- to late-1990s, indicating another area in which gender progress has stalled. This research suggests that men retain most of the primary breadwinning positions in top income households and that a financial glass ceiling remains firmly intact at the one percent level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The networks of interfirm relations that developed in business groups during economic transition are central to China's reform and are becoming an important part of the country's emergent economic structure. Using a recent and original data set that includes direct observations of economic choices made by firms, the process by which these interfirm lending and trade ties emerged and evolved in the early stages of reform is explored. Initially, information from sources external to the network dominated the formation and direction of exchange relations. Firms turned to their prior connections, took advantage of market position, and drew on bureaucratic power to develop alliances. Over time, internal influences gained importance, and managers increasingly drew on internal nontrade relations and other indicators inside the business group to identify lending and trade partners. The results demonstrate the central but changing role that social relations and environmental cues played in the creation of economic structure during China's transition. This study also contributes to an understanding of the processes of organizational adaptation to a major economic transition and interfirm alliance formation more generally. The findings reveal that firms select exchange partners of known reputation and solicit relations that reduce uncertainty, even when there is a cost involved. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]