A Study On The Effect Of Public Education Expenditure On The Income Gap Between Urban And Rural Residents

Since the reform and opening up,China’s economy has developed at a high speed.Among them,urban and rural income inequality needs to be urgently improved.Among the factors that influence the urban-rural income gap,the influence of public education expenditure on it is worth studying.The whole and different levels of public education expenditure has different effects on the income gap between urban and rural residents,even the part of it.Therefore,it can be reasonably arranged to narrow the income gap between urban and rural residents.This paper firstly introduces the research background and significance of the topic,analyzes and summarizes the existing literature at home and abroad,and puts forward the theme of narrowing the urban-rural income gap by reasonably arranging the structure of public education expenditure,adjusting the distribution of urban and rural education resources,and improving the structure of human capital.To be specific,first of all,this paper analyzes the current situation of public education expenditure in China from multiple perspectives,including the urban-rural and regional difference of public education expenditure,the use structure of it.as well as the current situation of residents’ income,the urban-rural gap and existing problems.Secondly,since it takes a period of time for education expenditure to affect household income through human capital accumulation,public education expenditure data are processed with a lag.Provincial panel data from 1995 to 2017 were used for empirical analysis.In the empirical analysis,by changing the core explanatory variables,the overall public education expenditure and the structure of public education expenditure’s impact on the urban-rural income gap are analyzed separately.Finally,based on data analysis and empirical results,relevant conclusions are drawn from three aspects: public education expenditure,urban-rural income gap and the impact of public education expenditure on urban-rural income gap,and specific policy Suggestions are proposed based on existing problems and conclusions.The data analysis results show that,First,the scale of China’s public education expenditure has continued to increase,accounting for more than 4% of GDP,which is at a medium level in international comparisons;Second,the government has made efforts to ensure equal access to education and ease the urban-rural income gap.Data for 2017 showed that the number of new school buildings,books per student and computers per student in rural areas was higher than that in urban areas.And in recent ten years,the financial subsidy of per student in rural areas is higher than that in urban areas.Third,the uneven distribution of urban and rural educational resources is still serious.The gap between urban and rural areas can be seen from the percentage of schools which network and hardware equipment have reached the standard,the faculty strength and other indicators,and rural teaching facilities are partly aging.The empirical results show that,first,the overall public education expenditure is negatively correlated with the urban-rural income gap.Increasing spending on public education can narrow the income gap between urban and rural areas and ease the uneven distribution of income.Second,expenditure on primary education and secondary education showed a positive correlation with the urban-rural income gap,while expenditure on higher education showed a negative correlation with the urban-rural income gap.The comparative analysis shows that the inequality between urban and rural expenditure on primary and secondary public education is more serious than that on higher education.Third,the expenditure on institutional education can narrow the urban-rural income gap,while the expenditure on investment education has no effect on the urban-rural income gap.