Rural credit input, labor transfer and urban–rural income gap: evidence from China

2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Guohua Yu ◽  
Zheng Lu

PurposeThe purpose of this study is to elaborate the theoretical mechanism of rural credit input affecting the urban–rural income gap from the perspective of labor transfer, and use a dynamic panel mediation model to test the transmission mechanism of rural credit input affecting the urban–rural income gap through labor transfer, so as to provide an empirical basis for narrowing the urban–rural income gap in China.Design/methodology/approachThis paper constructs a mechanism analysis framework for rural credit input affecting the urban–rural income gap. From the perspective of resource allocation and labor transfer, the authors expound the transmission path of rural credit input to the urban–rural income gap and analyze the theoretical mechanism of rural credit input that affects the urban–rural income gap through labor transfer. Based on this, this paper uses the dynamic panel mediation model to test the effect relationship between rural credit input, labor transfer and urban–rural income gap in 31 provinces of China from 2009 to 2018.FindingsIn theory, increasing rural credit input can ease the financial constraints on the development of “agriculture, rural areas and farmers” and provide capital accumulation for the development of rural non-agricultural industries. The development of rural non-agricultural industries can provide more jobs for rural surplus labor, thereby increasing the labor rate of return in rural areas, and ultimately conducive to narrowing the urban–rural income gap. Further, increasing rural credit input can improve the development level of rural non-agricultural industries, thereby promoting the transfer of agricultural labor. At the same time, rural credit input based on the intermediary variable of labor transfer has a significant inhibitory effect on the urban–rural income gap.Research limitations/implicationsThis study mainly focuses on the relationship between rural credit input, labor transfer and urban–rural income gap, so it is impossible to use micro-level data to further verify the impact of rural credit input on labor transfer. At the same time, the collection of indicators of rural credit investment in the China Financial Yearbook only started in 2009, which limited the number of samples to a certain extent.Practical implicationsThis paper assumes that the economy is mainly composed of urban and rural economic sectors. Therefore, labor can flow freely between urban and rural areas. However, in the near future, China's rural secondary and tertiary industries may develop rapidly, especially with the in-depth implementation of rural revitalization strategy, it is very important to pay attention to the current situation of rural industrial structure and incorporate the factors such as rural industrial structure into the existing model.Social implicationsThis study attempts to provide a new perspective and inspiration for rural credit input, the optimal allocation of labor force and narrowing the urban–rural income gap under China's rural revitalization strategy.Originality/valueBased on the analysis framework of neoclassical economic theory, this paper uses the constant elasticity of substitution production function to establish an urban–rural two-sector nested model that includes credit supply variables and analyzes the mechanism of rural credit input affecting the urban–rural income gap through labor transfer.

2018 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 136-148 ◽  
Author(s):  
Baoping Ren ◽  
Xiaojing Chao

Purpose Based on the theoretical definition of the quality of economic growth as well as the availability and reliability of the given data, the purpose of this paper is to build an evaluation system of a regional economic growth quality on three levels: conditions, processes and results. Design/methodology/approach From the perspective of economic quality, this paper offers a theoretical interpretation on how the urban–rural income gap affects the quality of economic growth and takes an empirical test on the sample panel data from 30 provinces and regions through difference GMM and system GMM models. Findings The results show that the excessively large income gap will influence economic growth in terms of the foundation, operation and the outcome, thereby, restricting the quality of economic growth. In addition, investments in human and physical capital and improvements in terms of transport infrastructure, industrial structure and economic openness play an active role in economic growth quality, whereas government expenditure scale, financial development and the deviation of industrial structure have a negative effect. Originality/value There has been a substantial amount of experience and evidence on the research about the issue of China’s income distribution and the quantity of economic growth, whereas there are relatively fewer discussions about the income distribution and the quality of economic growth. This paper, based on what has been mentioned above, tries to give a theoretical interpretation and an empirical test to describe the relationship between urban–rural income gap and the quality of economic growth from the quality point of view.


2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 32-44
Author(s):  
Irina Bancescu

Rural areas in Romania are underdeveloped, with the main economic activity being agriculture. Urban-rural income gap and poverty levels are indicative of an underdeveloped rural area. Urban-rural absolute income gap for average monthly income increased from 352 RON in 2007 to 663 RON in 2017. Moreover, the work poverty rate is higher in rural areas than in urban areas. Economic rural development can be achieved by improvements of the labour market and introduction of new value-added products. Agricultural and non-agricultural activities are dependent on each other for a successful rural development leading to poverty alleviation. An industry that combines the two types of economic activities is agriculture biomaterial industry. In this paper, the authos investigates the factors influencing rural poverty and analyses the current stage of the bioplastics market in Romania and its economic implications. Bioplastics industry can reduce urban-rural income gaps and poverty in rural areas.


2021 ◽  
Vol 95 ◽  
pp. 01003
Author(s):  
Irina Băncescu

Rural – urban income gap is an important social-economic development indicator for a society. A large rural - urban income gap within a society reveals a split of it into two distinct societies, one extremely poor compared to the other. In Romania, almost half of the resident population lives in rural areas (46.02% in 2019), while the urban-rural migration flow is higher than the traditional reverse flow since 1997. However, the country is characterized by regional economic disparities, Bucharest-Ilfov region being the most economically developed. Labour market in rural areas is underdeveloped, rural population being highly depended on subsistence agriculture. Furthermore, rural areas have a low level of income and living standards. In this paper, we analysis the rural-urban labour market dynamics and rural-urban income gap using a LMDI (logarithmic mean Divisia index) decomposition for 2005-2019 period. Factors such as income gap effect and structural rural income effect are considered. Results show that the total urban–rural income gap has decreased with 8.91%, while structural rural income effect contributed with an increase of only 0.63%, the income gap effect (of different employed population groups) being of -9.49%.


2016 ◽  
Vol 04 (02) ◽  
pp. 1650014 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lei HU

At present, there’s no agreement on how income gap affects carbon dioxide emissions. In this study, the author takes an empirical test of the relationship between income gap and carbon dioxide emissions based on the extended IPAT model, using China’s provincial panel data of from 2000 to 2012. The conclusion supports Boyce’s point of view that excessive income gap between urban and rural areas leads to environmental degradation. Meanwhile, the study introduces the cross terms of urban–rural income gap ratio and energy efficiency, and finds that excessive income gap would be an obstacle for China to achieve energy conservation and emission reduction by improving energy efficiency. Therefore, while promoting actions to climate change, energy conservation and emission reduction, governments should also narrow urban–rural income gap besides relying on the restrictions of relevant laws and regulations.


2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (8) ◽  
pp. 3327
Author(s):  
Qiang Li ◽  
Xiaohang Wu ◽  
Yi Zhang ◽  
Yafei Wang

Agricultural total factor productivity (TFP) provides a measure of the efficiency of agricultural production, allowing for comparisons across time, countries and regions. Agricultural environmental total factor productivity not only considers the desired output, but also takes resource efficiency and environment friendliness into account. Using the Data Envelopment Analysis with slack-based measure (DEA-SBM) super-efficiency model, this research measures the agricultural environmental total factor productivity (ETFP) of 30 provincial regions in China. Based on the measurements, the spatial autoregressive (SAR) model and estimation method were used to empirically test the effects on the agricultural ETFP for the urban-rural income gap. The results indicated that from 2001 to 2017, agricultural ETFP in China grew at an average annual rate of 4.3%, and the technological progress and technical efficiency after decomposition increased by 3.6% and 5.9% respectively. The findings indicated that the agricultural ETFP growth has not only failed in narrowing urban-rural income gap, but further widened it. Changes in industrial structure, upgrades in market demand and increases in human capital have instigated the ever alarming urban-rural income gap. Indeed, the economic acceleration has a restraining effect on the urban-rural income gap.


Author(s):  
He Xia ◽  
Shaoying Wu ◽  
◽  

The construction of Hainan International Tourism Island, one of the national strategies in China, implemented in January 2010. A common concern is whether the policy has managed to raise farmers’ income and reduce the income gap between urban and rural residents. Therefore, this study aims to make counterfactual causal inferences based on data from 2005 to 2018 on Hainan Province. This study applies both the generalized principal component analysis method and the synthetic control method. According to the model results, the policy did not increase farmers’ income in Hainan or narrow the income gap between urban and rural areas in the first five years. However, after 2014, the result reversed. The increasing farmers’ income and narrowing gap indicate that the tourism-related Kuznets curve hypothesis is valid for the policy. The results of a placebo test verify the robustness of this conclusion.


2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (10) ◽  
pp. 4236
Author(s):  
Weidong Li ◽  
Xuefang Wang ◽  
Olli-Pekka Hilmola

Transportation is an important factor affecting the balance of regional economic pattern. The construction of high-speed railway enhances the mobility of population, capital, technology and information resources between urban and rural areas. Will it further affect the income gap between urban and rural areas? Based on the nonlinear time-varying factor model, this paper analyzes the convergence of urban-rural income gap with the angle of high-speed railway. After rejecting the assumption of overall convergence in the traditional four economic regions, three convergence clubs of urban-rural income gap were found. For these ordered logit regression model is used to explore the initial factors that may affect the formation of “convergence club”. Empirical results show that the construction of High-speed railway has effectively narrows the urban-rural income gap in China, but it is not the cause of the formation of the three convergence clubs. The convergence effect of High-speed railway on the urban-rural income gap in China is still relatively weak.


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