Research On The Effect And Mechanism Of Rural Industrial Convergence In The Yangtze River Economic Belt On The Urban-Rural Income Gap

Since the reform and opening up,China's economic development has made remarkable achievements,and the quality of life of urban and rural residents has been significantly improved.However,while fully affirming the achievements of China's rapid growth of urban and rural residents,the problem of imbalance and insufficiency has not been eradicated,and the widening income gap between urban and rural residents is becoming more and more prominent.In order to solve the problem of urban-rural income gap,the government has made many countermeasures,among which the Rural Revitalization Strategy is put forward at the right time.In 2015,the No.1 central document first proposed to promote the development of rural industrial convergence,and indicated that the development of rural industrial convergence is an important way to help farmers increase their income.The report of the 19th CPC National Congress in 2017 put forward the general requirements for the implementation of the Rural Revitalization Strategy.Among them,industrial prosperity is the focus and key of Rural Revitalization and the foundation and guarantee of Rural Revitalization.To realize the prosperity of rural industry,we must reconstruct the agricultural and rural industrial system and realize the convergence and interactive development of agriculture and secondary and tertiary industries.The outline of the 14th five year plan and long-term objectives for 2035 issued in March 2021 proposed to implement the Rural Revitalization Strategy,solve the problems of agriculture,rural areas and farmers,promote the convergence of rural industries,extend the industrial chain and increase farmers' income.It can be seen that the development of rural industrial convergence,as an advanced form of agricultural industrialization,is bound to have an important impact on the income gap between urban and rural areas.As an important inland river economic belt in China,the Yangtze River economic belt is also the most important agricultural production area and rural agglomeration area in China.At present,the construction of agricultural industrial system in the Yangtze River economic belt has achieved great results,but it still faces many problems,such as low added value of agricultural products,low overall agricultural benefits,insufficient expansion of agricultural multi-function in rural areas,especially in the upper reaches of the Yangtze River,and lack of integrated development of agriculture and secondary and tertiary industries.Promoting the prosperity of rural industries in the Yangtze River economic belt is conducive to promoting the integrated development of rural industries,expanding the employment and increase of farmers,improving the economic benefits of agriculture and rural areas,and constantly narrowing the income gap between urban and rural areas in the Yangtze River economic belt,which is of great significance to promote the realization of the goal of common prosperity.In this paper,the mechanism of the impact of rural industrial convergence on the urban-rural income gap is established after the literature review and theoretical basis of relevant research at home and abroad.Secondly,it combs the status quo of the rural industrial convergence development and the urban-rural income gap in the Yangtze River Economic Belt,and uses the entropy weight TOPSIS method measures the level of rural industrial convergence in 120 prefecture-level cities in the Yangtze River Economic Belt from 2009 to 2019,and examines the impact of rural industrial convergence in the Yangtze River Economic Belt on the urban-rural income gap,and uses the PSM-DID model to take 2015 as the time.The node tests the effectiveness of the policy effect of rural industrial convergence affecting urban-rural income gap;then the mediating effect of rural economic growth and urbanization on rural industrial convergence affecting urban-rural income gap,and the moderating effect of rural infrastructure on rural industrial convergence affecting urban-rural income gap Conducted research;Furthermore,based on the different modes of rural industrial convergence,the mechanism of multi-dimensional rural industrial convergence affecting urban-rural income gap was studied.Finally,the research conclusions were summarized and relevant policy recommendations were put forward.The main research conclusions of this paper are as follows:(1)The convergence level of rural industries in the Yangtze River Economic Belt is improving year by year,and there are regional differences in the development level.During the sample period,the convergence level of rural industries in cities of the Yangtze River Economic Belt shows a trend of continuous rise,but it is still at a low development level on the whole.There are significant regional differences in the level of rural industry convergence in different regions of the Yangtze River Economic Belt,which shows a spatial pattern of decreasing gradient in in the upper,middle,and lower reaches.(2)The impact of rural industrial convergence on narrowing the urban-rural income gap is increasing year by year.Based on the panel data of the Yangtze River Economic Belt from 2009 to 2019,FE method,OLS method,FGLS method and GMM method were used to empirically test the questions raised.The empirical results show that:on the whole,the convergence of rural industries is conducive to narrowing the urban-rural income gap in the Yangtze River Economic Belt;At the same time,the sub-regional regression comparison shows that there are obvious regional differences in the role of rural industrial convergence in narrowing the urban-rural income gap.Compared with the middle and lower reaches,the effect of rural industrial convergence on narrowing the urban-rural income gap is more significant in the upper reaches.(3)The urban-rural income gap is greatly affected by the rural industrial convergence policy.With the gradual promotion of the national rural industrial convergence policy,the level of rural industrial convergence has been further improved,and the impact on reducing the urban-rural income gap has also been further strengthened.Through the PSM-DID model,the validity of the effect of rural industrial convergence on urban-rural income gap policy was tested with 2015 as the time node.The study found that the urban-rural income gap in the Yangtze River Economic Belt was greatly affected by the rural industrial convergence policy,especially after the country formally proposed and implemented the rural industrial convergence policy in 2015.At the same time,through the regional regression of the DID model,it is found that the effectiveness of policy-based rural industrial convergence in narrowing the urban-rural income gap in the lower,the middle and the reaches is gradually increasing.(4)The three intermediate variables of rural economic growth,urbanization and rural infrastructure play an important role in the mechanism of rural industrial convergence to narrow the urban-rural income gap,and each has its own performance in the empirical study.There are three influencing mechanisms of rural economic growth,urbanization and rural infrastructure to narrow the urban-rural income gap.The test results show that rural economic growth and urbanization play a part of intermediary effect on narrowing the urban-rural income gap,and urbanization is greater than rural economic growth.Rural infrastructure has a positive moderating effect on reducing the urban-rural income gap by rural industrial convergence.According to regional comparative analysis,the mediating effect of rural economic growth on rural industrial convergence to narrow the urban-rural income gap presents the distribution characteristics of the upper reaches>the middle reaches>the lower reaches.The mediating effect of urbanization on rural industrial convergence and narrowing the urban-rural income gap is manifested in the lower reaches with a higher level of urbanization,which has more advantages in reducing the urban-rural income gap.The moderating effect of rural infrastructure on rural industrial convergence to narrow urban-rural income gap has a decreasing trend from the lower reaches to the upper reaches.(5)The multidimensional rural industrial convergence model has a significant impact on narrowing the urban-rural income gap,and the impact effect is heterogeneous.On the one hand,the multidimensional rural industrial convergence model as the core explanatory variable has a significant impact on the urban-rural income gap.The order of the impact of the four rural industrial convergence models on narrowing the urban-rural income gap is agricultural internal convergence>agricultural function expansion convergence>agricultural industrial chain extension convergence>high-tech penetration convergence.On the other hand,there is regional heterogeneity in the impact of various convergence modes on the urban-rural income gap.The influence of rural industrial convergence on urban-rural income gap gradually increases from downstream to upstream.The extended convergence model of agricultural industry chain can effectively narrow the income gap between urban and rural areas in the upper reaches,and the effect is more obvious than that in the middle and lower reaches.The effect of agricultural function expansion convergence on narrowing the urban-rural income gap is higher in the upper reaches than in the middle and lower reaches.The effect of high-tech osmotic convergence on narrowing the income gap between urban and rural areas shows a trend of the upper reaches>the middle reaches>the lower reaches.Possible innovations of this paper:(1)from the perspective of analysis,it enriches the existing logical analysis system on the impact of rural industrial convergence on urban-rural income gap.In addition to explaining the direct impact of rural industrial convergence on the urban-rural income gap,this paper also builds the indirect impact mechanism of rural industrial convergence in the Yangtze River Economic Belt on the urban-rural income gap based on the mediating effect of rural economic growth and urbanization and the moderating effect of rural infrastructure,with a more comprehensive research perspective.(2)In the empirical analysis,it enriches the empirical test of the effect and mechanism of rural industrial convergence on the urban-rural income gap.In the overall effect analysis,in addition to the benchmark regression,empirical test is also carried out on the effect difference before and after the implementation of rural industrial convergence policy.There are both the test of the overall effect and the test of regional differences.The whole empirical study is more comprehensive,which is helpful to draw more comprehensive and detailed conclusions.(3)In terms of research content,the heterogeneity analysis of the multi-dimensional rural industrial convergence model on the urban-rural income gap is expanded and extended.The Yangtze River Economic Belt spans three major regions of China,east and west,and there are great differences in resource endowment and social and economic development level between regions.Therefore,the effects of different types of rural industrial convergence modes on the urban-rural income gap between different regions of the Yangtze River Economic Belt are analyzed and compared.It is helpful to reflect and optimize the current development strategy of the Yangtze River Economic Belt based on local conditions to develop the rural industry convergence model to narrow the income gap between urban and rural areas,and provide reference experience for solving similar or similar economic and social development problems in other regions of China.