| We have been carrying out the policies of reform and opening up since1978. NowChinese economy has entered a new stage for the development in the past30years. Percapita GDP from$96in1978, ranked the world’s penultimate increased to$6,100in2012jumped to84th place worldwide.Obviously, Chinese economy has achieved aqualitative leap. The rate of this growth has attracted worldwide attention, at the sametime, the income gap between urban and rural residents is increasingly significant andbeyond the scope of reasonable. The income gap is almost inevitable in the process ofrapid economic growth, however, the income gap is too large will inhibit the sustainableeconomic development.The paper has a unique regional perspective to study the influence of the incomegap between urban and rural consumer demand. Framework of the existed theoreticalmodels of Western scholars to study established consumer demand has some limitations.Based on Keynesian theory of consumption, consumer demand deduced about theincome gap between urban and rural areas of the functional relationship, reflecting theincome gap between urban and rural residents mechanisms to influence consumerdemand. This function can be used as a theoretical basis for the idea of providing areference for future research. In this paper, the national aggregate level, the income gapbetween urban and rural residents affected consumer demand for a statistical andquantitative analysis, the analysis concluded that the impact of the income gap betweenurban and rural residents’ consumption demand significant: urban-rural income gap(URR) per unit change, the national average propensity to consume (APC) will reversechanges0.2334units; urban-rural income gap (URR) per unit change,the consumer gapbetween urban and rural residents will change0.8513units. To further study theinfluence of the income gap between urban and rural residents in different areas ofconsumer demand, the paper selects the level of different economic development of of12typical regions, and the samples of these areas is the time series data during the2002to2012，based these data，conduct a panel analysis, and further validate the analysisresults on the overall level of the country.In today’s economic situation, the consumer is not only a way of stimulating economic growth, but also the country’s prosperity and the people’s well-being reflected.In this urban-rural dual structure of our society, the impact of the income gap betweenurban and rural residents with consumer demand for regional stages and, if we want tonarrow the income gap between urban and rural areas to stimulate consumer demand, thekey is to increase the income of farmers. Only while maintaining economic sustainability,so that a more reasonable distribution of income, social security system more perfect,consumer demand will further enhance the capabilities and levels of economicdevelopment and consumer demand in order to embark on a virtuous cycle stage. |
