An Empirical Study On The Income Gap Between Urban And Rural Areas In China Based On Panel Data

As an important part of farmers’ income problems, to reduce rural-urban income means a lot for the “Three rural” issues. Demonstration also shows that the income gap in China can be explained most by the gap between urban and rural areas. Generally, people believe that the income gap between urban and rural areas would be influenced by different factors, and the result would vary because of countries and regions. Therefore, it’s necessary for us to study the income gap between urban and rural by region in China. Based on the panel data of 30 provinces and cities between 1999 and 2013, this dissertation studies the influencing factors and the impact of China’s income gap between urban and rural areas under the country’s sample and three sub-samples by random intercept model. The result shows that, for the whole country, the influencing factors are the level of urbanization, the level of investment, industrial structure, economic development, and the dual structure. For the three sub-samples of the eastern, central, western area, the influence factors are the level of urbanization, the level of investment, industrial structure, and the level of investment, industrial structure, economic development, and the level of urbanization, the level of investment, economic development, dual structure. Under different samples, the correlations between factors and income gap between urban and rural areas are dissimilar.