Abstract: In theory, trade openness can bring significant impact on the external risks faced by residents and the income gap, thus the residents’ preference to redistribution will be affected. By making combined use of the urban data and micro-level data, this paper empirically examines the impact of trade openness on Chinese residents’ preferences to redistribution. The results show that trade openness has a significant positive effect on their preferences to redistribution. Further channel mechanism analysis finds that the trade openness affects the residents’ redistribution preference mainly by affecting the external risks faced by the residents. Therefore, in order to adapt to the new situation of globalization and to fulfill the task of anti-poverty, the government should build a social safety net to ease the risks to the residents brought by the trade openness.

Key words: preference for redistribution; trade openness; external risk; income gap