Research On The Influence Of Highway Infrastructure Construction On The Income Gap Between Urban And Rural Residents

Since the reform and opening up,China's economy has developed rapidly,and the living standards of residents have also been greatly improved.In 2010,China's GDP totaled Japan for the first time and became the world's second largest economy.Although the income of Chinese residents continues to rise,the income gap between urban and rural residents still exists in China.At present,whether the construction of highway infrastructure is expanding or narrowing the income gap between urban and rural residents has not reached a consensus.Therefore,this paper analyzes the level of specialization in different regions from this contradiction point,and discusses the extent to which each region is included in the market for division of labor.This examines the impact of highway infrastructure construction on the urban-rural income gap.Based on Smith-Yange's theorem,this paper constructs the dual economic model of rural and urban areas by using the division of labor theory of emerging classical economics,and constructs highway infrastructure as a model of market transaction efficiency.And through the data from 1998-2016,the empirical results show that: With the gradual development of highway infrastructure construction,the market transaction efficiency is gradually improved,and the urban and rural areas have changed from self-sufficiency mode to partial division of labor structure.When the model of complete division of labor is reached,the urban-rural income gap brought about by this will gradually expand and then reduce the inverted U-shaped characteristics as the transaction efficiency gradually increases.From the regression results of major regions,the construction of highway infrastructure has little impact on the urban-rural income gap in the eastern region,while the central region has a greater impact.The reason is that the road infrastructure in the eastern region is relatively developed,and the increase in transportation investment in the eastern region is also playing the role of “icing on the cake”.In the central and western regions,the need to increase investment in road construction can further narrow the income gap between urban and rural areas.From the perspective of highway grades,highway construction has less impact on urban-rural income gap,while ordinary county-level highways have a greater impact on urban-rural income gap.Therefore,increasing investment in county-level roads is the main way to narrow the income gap between urban and rural areas and achieve common prosperity.