A Study On The Urban-rural Income Gap In The System Of Urban Biased

It has been rare to see the urban-rural residents' income ratio exceeding 2 worldwide, while it is surely rare to see the ratio in China lower than 2. Somebody has ever exclaimed: the urban-rural residents' income ratio in China has been one that no other countries can surpass. Facing the ever-widening urban-rural income gap, Chinese government has adopted a series of countermeasures, although all the measures seem to be not so powerful or effective and there is possibility for China to get lost into the so-called "Latin-American Trap".Under such a background, the dissertation tries to analyze the social system of urban biased and the influence the system has employed upon the urban-rural income gap and also to discover the logical relationship between the social system of Urban Biased and the urban-rural income gap.Beginning with the comment on literature, at home or abroad, related to the urban-rural income gap, the dissertation constructs a theoretical framework especially of the urban-rural income gap. Author does believe: in the social system of Urban Biased, the ever-widening urban-rural income gap is innate as well as postnatal, i.e, the urban-rural income gap is innate, so it is unavoidable; and the urban-rural income gap is postnatal, so it must be influenced or determined by a series of mechanism of urban biased.Based on the theoretical framework established by author, the dissertation emphasizes the analyses of the external factor—the system of urban biased influencing the urban-rural income gap. The dissertation presents the idea that, on one hand, the system of urban biased directly influences the urban-rural income gap, and on the other hand, the system indirectly influences the income gap by destroying the self-modification mechanism that is believed to be able to do some positive and automatic work to narrow the urban-rural income gap. In such a system of urban biased, the urban-rural income gap becomes ever-widening and irreversible.The system of urban biased is embodied in many fields such as resource allocation, urban-rural exchange, re-allocation and so on. The principle of urban biased embodied in the course of resource allocation has partly determined the urban-rural income gap even before the production starts; the principle of urban biased embodied in urban-rural exchange has been widening the urban-rural income gap for the unfair basis; and principle of urban biased has already caused serious departure between the practice and aims of re-allocation. A series of policies of urban biased have put rural residents in a very disadvantageous situation; what's more, in order to bind farmers onto the limited land, household registration system of apparent discrimination has been established and strictly carried out.China now is in a course of rapid development and of obvious characteristics of dual conomic structure, and the marginal productivities of urban-rural productive elements are greatly different, which is also the innate cause of the ever-widening urban-rural income gap. Meanwhile, as for the urban-rural interest relationship, China is a country of typical orientation of urban biased, and China's political and economical system has empowered its government with much more powerful economical decision-making authority than most other countries, which endows the urban-rural income gap in China with evident external features. Rule of thumb data and empirical study all show that urban-rural income gap in China is closely related to and features the system of urban biased. The combination of system of urban biased and planned economy has solidified the urban-rural income gap, while the combination of system of urban biased and market economy has caused the accumulatively-widening urban-rural income gap.Ever since the reform and opening-up, system of urban biased has been gradually weakened, although the positive change can just be seen in urban-rural exchange system and household registration system. The political system in China determines that the corrective measures against system of urban biased can just be promulgated and carried out by China's government, which requires fair primary and secondary distribution of the national income whether in urban or rural areas.Analyses of the corrective sequence of the system of urban biased indicate that the extent to which peasants participate in evolution process of urban biased system has contributed more than people can imagine. So, in order to correct system of urban biased, rural residents should be given chances of bargaining, opportunities of expressing their hopes and requirements and occasions or stages on which they can "do" or "say" something for their interest demand.The system of urban biased came into being in a specific period of time, and in the process of institutional reform, some balanced attitudes should be adopted: on one hand, interests of both urban and rural residents should be considered, urban-rural interests should be balanced and a clear aim should be figured out for institutional innovation; and on the other hand, the resistance and risks in reform should be consciously avoided. The most practical way is to balance urban-rural relationship by progressive and incremental interest regulation, i.e. to maintain urban residents' vested interest while allocate a bigger proportion to the rural areas in the distribution process of newly-increased interest.