| Reform and opening-up over the past 40 years has led to China’s remarkable economic development and a significant rise in the income level of the population.However,the problem of urban-rural income inequality has not been fundamentally solved and remains a relatively prominent problem in China’s social and economic development process at this stage,mainly reflecting the fact that the income gap between urban and rural China is still high as a whole,although it shows a declining trend.Objectively,market failures in income distribution make it difficult to achieve equitable income distribution by relying solely on market mechanisms and require correction by the ’visible hand’ of government to achieve both efficiency and equity.Basic public services,mainly provided by the government,are an important direction for correcting the income gap between urban and rural areas.The Report of the 20 th Party Congress proposes improving the basic public service system and upgrading public services,and the Outline of the 14 th Five-Year Plan for the National Economic and Social Development of the People’s Republic of China and Vision for 2035 strives to improve the national public service system,accelerate the shortcomings in basic public services and improve the quality and level of public services The emphasis is on the following.Therefore,research on how to reduce the urban-rural income gap by improving the level of basic public services is of great significance.First,starting from the analysis of the problem of income distribution among residents under the dual structure of urban and rural areas in China,relevant literature is collated and the concept of basic public services and urban-rural income disparity is introduced in the theoretical analysis part of this paper to elaborate the relevant theories and impact mechanisms of basic public services and urban-rural income disparity Based on this,the current situation of basic public services and urban-rural income inequality in China is analysed.Next,an indicator system for the level of basic public services in China is developed,measuring comprehensive indicators and secondary indicators.As a research sample for the empirical analysis,panel data from 31 provinces from 2010 to 2021 are selected,and a fixed effects model is used to explore in some depth the impact of China’s basic public service levels,including the five dimensions of public education,healthcare,social security,infrastructure and ecological environment,on urban-rural income inequality in China,and to conduct a sub indicator analysis,endogeneity test,robustness test and heterogeneity analysis.analysis.Finally,policy recommendations are made based on the results of the empirical analysis.The study shows that improving the level of basic public services in China can facilitate the narrowing of the urban-rural income gap.Sub-indicator regression results show that improvements in healthcare,public education,infrastructure and ecological environment all contribute to reducing the urban-rural income gap.Among the control variables in this paper,the level of economic development,the level of government involvement and the level of economic openness can significantly reduce the urban-rural income gap.In other words,an increase in the level of economic development,the level of economic openness and the level of government involvement can effectively reduce the income gap between urban and rural China.Meanwhile,regional heterogeneity analysis reveals that the level of basic public services has the strongest negative impact on urbanrural income inequality in the eastern region,followed by the central region.The coefficients of the level of economic development,government participation and economic openness in the Eastern,Central and Western regions are significantly negative and all contribute positively to reducing urban-rural income inequality. |
