The nonlinear effects of tourism on rural income inequality and urban–rural income inequality: Evidence from China

2021 ◽  
pp. 135481662110418
Author(s):  
Jiekuan Zhang

Tourism’s relationship with income inequality is a hot spot in the academic community; however, few studies focus on how tourism shapes rural income inequality, despite its significant role in rural poverty alleviation. This article investigates the nonlinear effects of tourism on urban–rural income inequality and rural income inequality based on data from China’s provincial regions over the period 1995–2018, using the dynamic panel data approach. This study further examines the regional heterogeneity of such effects. The results demonstrate that for the national sample, there exists a significant cubic curve relationship between domestic tourism and rural income inequality. However, inbound tourism’s relationship with rural income inequality is not significant. Besides, there exists an N-shaped Kuznets curve between domestic or inbound tourism and urban–rural income inequality. The effects of tourism on rural income inequality and urban–rural income inequality vary significantly across the eastern, middle, and western regions. From east to middle to west, the significance of inbound tourism’s influence on income inequality decreases gradually. This study also highlights some critical theoretical and practical implications. Unlike prior studies, this article builds the first comprehensive research framework consisting of tourism, rural income inequality, and urban–rural income inequality.

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.


2016 ◽  
Vol 8 (3) ◽  
pp. 480-497 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chunlai Chen

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to analyse the impact of foreign direct investment (FDI) on urban-rural income inequality in China. Design/methodology/approach This study uses the provincial-level panel data and employs the fixed-effects instrumental variable regression technique to investigate empirically the impact of FDI on urban-rural income inequality in China. Findings The study finds that while FDI has directly contributed to reducing urban-rural income inequality through employment creation, knowledge spillovers and contribution to economic growth, FDI has also contributed to increasing urban-rural income inequality through international trade. Practical implications The study has some policy implications. First, as the study finds that FDI not only contributes to reducing urban-rural income inequality through employment creation, knowledge spillovers and contribution to economic growth, but also contributes to increasing urban-rural income inequality through international trade, therefore, apart from improving local economic and technological conditions to attract more FDI inflows, China should re-design FDI policies by shifting away from encouraging export-oriented FDI to encouraging FDI flows into the industries and sectors in line with China’s overall economic structural adjustments and industrial upgrading. Second, policies should focus on increasing investment in infrastructure development and in public education, which not only can reduce urban-rural income inequality but also can attract more FDI inflows. And finally policies should be designed to accelerate urbanisation development by focusing on urban-rural integrated development, household registration system reform and proper settlement of rural migrants in urban areas, thus reducing urban-rural income inequality. Originality/value The paper makes two major contributions to the literature. First, the paper adopts the fixed-effects instrumental variable regression technique to deal with the endogeneity issues in estimating the impact of FDI on urban-rural income inequality, producing more consistent estimates. Second, the paper investigates not only the direct impact of FDI on urban-rural income inequality through the effects of employment creation, knowledge spillovers and contribution to economic growth, but also the indirect impact of FDI on urban-rural income inequality through its activities in international trade, adding new empirical evidence to the sparse literature on the impact of FDI on income inequality in China.


2020 ◽  
Vol 20 (5) ◽  
pp. 1207-1239
Author(s):  
Di Guo ◽  
Kun Jiang ◽  
Chenggang Xu ◽  
Xiyi Yang

Abstract This study examines the effects of China’s industrial clusters on regional economic growth and urban–rural income inequality within a region. A density-based index (DBI) is developed to capture the unique features of cluster development in China. From a county-level DBI panel data constructed based on firm- and county-level datasets, we find that clusters enhance local economic growth substantially. Moreover, the existence of entrepreneurial clusters (clusters mainly consist of nonstate-owned firms) helps to reduce local urban–rural income inequality by increasing the income of local rural residents. We also find that the clustering effects on growth and reduction of inequality are less significant in more urbanized regions or megacities. Identification issues are carefully addressed by deploying two-stage estimations with instrumental variables and Granger test.


2016 ◽  
Vol 2016 ◽  
pp. 1-11 ◽  
Author(s):  
Heyuan You

Poverty is a social problem in developing countries, especially for the rural places experiencing rapid transition. This study characterizes the temporal changes of rural poverty under rural transition during 1991–2010 in Guangxi. In particular, poverty is measured by the Foster-Greer-Thorbecke method, and rural transition is described from three aspects including rural industrialization, regional urbanization, and agriculture commercialization. Relationships are quantified by multivariate linear regression. Results reveal that industry income proportion (IIP) and secondary industry proportion (SIP) are positive contributors to the poverty incidence, while urban-rural income gap (URIG) is a negative contributor to the poverty incidence. Industrial total output of township and village enterprises (ITOE), IIP, and grain commercialization rate (GCR) present positive correlation with the poverty depth. The URIG has a negative correlation with the poverty depth. Tertiary industry proportion (TIP) and expenditure on fixed productive assets per capita (EFPA) are positively correlated with the poverty severity, while URIG and power of agricultural machinery (PAM) associate with poverty severity negatively. Redundancy analysis shows that individual influence of rural industrialization is higher than that of regional urbanization and agriculture commercialization. The joint influences of rural industrialization, regional urbanization, and agriculture commercialization are the strongest.


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.


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