Research On The Impact Of High-Speed Railway On The Consunmption Gap Between Urban And Rural Residents In West China

Consumption is the primary engine of economic growth.However,by the impact of the dual economic structure of urban and rural areas,the problem of the unbalanced and insufficient consumption development between urban and rural residents is becoming increasingly significant.Therefore,to improve the consumption level and upgrade the consumption structure has become an essential step to promote the consumption field and alleviate the gap between urban and rural consumption.At the same time,as we know the sentence "To get rich,build roads first".Since the beginning of the twenty-first century,China’s high-speed railway construction gradually enter in the Fast lane.By the end of 2019,China had built a total of 35,900 kilometers of high-speed railway,ranking first in the world.The "New infrastructure" of high-speed railway is gradually becoming an crucial power for accelerating high-quality and sustainable economic development.So,whether or not the high-speed railway would have impact on the regional consumption difference between urban and rural residents in western China? What are the mechanisms of this kind of impact?These problems deserve our further in-depth discussion.This article use the way of combining the theory and the demonstration to launch the research.Firstly,in the theoretical part of the paper,we make an in-depth analysis of how the opening of high-speed railway affects the consumption of residents and What aspects does high-speed railway affect urban and rural residents’ consumption.At the same time,this paper puts forward three mechanisms that affect the consumption gap between urban and rural residents in western China: the non-equilibrium mechanism of income distribution effect,the non-equilibrium mechanism of structural upgrading effect and the non-equilibrium mechanism of spatial spillover effect.Secondly,in the empirical part of our paper,in view of the availability of data,according to the panel data from 88 cities in 12 provinces in western China from 2004 to 2019,by constructing multiple time-point double difference and spatial double difference models,etc.,this paper explores the following issues:(1)empirical test the influence effect of the opening of high-speed railway on the consumption gap between urban and rural residents in western China;(2)using different research stages and different core variables to empirically test the robustness of the model;(3)empirical analysis the phenomenon of the influence of the high-speed railway on the consumption difference through the changes of the income gap by using the income gap between urban and rural residents as an intermediary variable;(4)empirical test the unbalance property of the influence of high-speed railway on the western regional consumption structure upgrading through refining the urban and rural residents consumption;(5)constructing the spatial dual difference model to empirically test the disequilibrium of the spatial spillover effect of high-speed railway on the consumption of urban and rural residents in western China.The main conclusions are as follows:(1)the opening of high-speed railway has enlarged the consumption difference between urban and rural residents in the west of China;(2)the opening of high-speed railway has accelerated the increasing of the income level of all residents in western China,however the promoting effect on the urban residents is stronger.The disequilibrium of the influence of high-speed railway on income distribution results in the widening of income gap between different residents.What’s more,the result of intermediary effect shows that high-speed railway may affect the income gap between different residents from different region and then their consumption difference;(3)the opening of high-speed railway has accelerated the improvement of the consumption level and the upgrading of the consumption structure of all residents in the western region,however the promotion of the urban residents is stronger.The opening of high-speed railway has accelerated the increasing of the consumption of all residents in the west of China.The imbalance of the upgrading effect of the consumption structure probably originate from the widening consumption gap;(4)the opening of high-speed railway has a spatial spillover effect on the consumption of residents in the western region and it has significantly increased the cross-district consumption of urban residents,but it has not increased the cross-district consumption of rural residents.The imbalance of consumption space spillover effect between urban and rural residents may result from the widening consumption gap.According to the above conclusions,this paper puts forward the following countermeasures and suggestions: first,we can improve the rural infrastructure conditions to ensure that residents enjoy transport resources fairly;second,to meet the travel needs of urban and rural residents,develop personalized high-speed rail operation strategies;third,we will strengthen connectivity in the western region to better serve cross-regional consumption by urban and rural residents.