Hiroshi Sato has published many works on topics related to development economics and inequality in China and elsewhere. He is co-editor of Unemployment, Inequality and Poverty in Urban China (2003), author of The Growth of Market Relations in Post-Reform Rural China (2003) and has contributed to numerous works including Inequality and Public Policy in China. He received the IDE Prize for Research on Developing Economies in 2004 for his Japanese book Shotoku Kakusa to Hinkon (Income Inequality and Poverty, 2003).