New Infrastructure Investment And Urban-rural Income Gap In China

In the past 40 years,infrastructure investment has been an important policy tool to drive economic growth and coordinate urban and rural development in China,but in fact the income gap between urban and rural areas has been widening.As a hot topic discussed by all sectors of society,the implementation of new infrastructure is to promote high-quality development of infrastructure,effectively stimulate domestic demand,and cope with various difficulties caused by the economic downturn.For most studies have focused on the traditional relationship between infrastructure investment and the income gap between urban and rural areas of discussion,but as the traditional infrastructure investment diminishing marginal benefit and the implement of new infrastructure investment and increasing,how to grasp the opportunity of a wave of infrastructure investment,promote the regional sustainable development together,achieve the goal of narrowing the income gap between urban and rural areas at the same time,It has become a realistic issue faced by the government and academia at present.Based on the above problems,this paper introduces new infrastructure investment into the models of urban and rural sectors on the basis of reviewing relevant literature and theories,constructs theoretical models of new infrastructure investment,urban-rural income gap,economic development level and urbanization level,and puts forward relevant research assumptions.Panel data of 30 provinces in China from 2003 to 2018 are selected as research samples,and GMM method and fixed effect model are used to conduct empirical tests to investigate the impact of new infrastructure investment on urban-rural income gap in recent 16 years in China,providing basis and reference for the strategic layout of new infrastructure investment.The empirical results show that: first,on a national scale,investment in new infrastructure reduces the income gap between urban and rural areas.Second,the impact of new infrastructure investment on the urban-rural income gap also depends on the level of urbanization and economic development in the region.Specifically,in areas with relatively high levels of urbanization or economic development,new infrastructure effectively alleviates the urban-rural income gap;But in areas with low levels of urbanization or economic development,new infrastructure investment has widened the urban-rural income gap.Based on the empirical results,this study puts forward corresponding policy suggestions from the perspectives of regional layout of new infrastructure investment and promotion of new urbanization,so as to enable developing regions to participate in a new round of new infrastructure investment and help narrow the regional gap and urban-rural income gap.At the same time,this study expands the research framework of the relationship between infrastructure investment and urban-rural income gap,and deeply understands the important role of new infrastructure investment.