Research On The Influence Of Human Capital Difference On The Urban-rural Economic Gap In China

At present,the severe problem of urban-rural economic gap in China has become a huge constraint to the integrated development of urban and rural areas.By analyzing the current situation and causes of the urban-rural economic gap in China,this paper finds that human capital plays an important role in narrowing the urban-rural economic gap in addition to policy and system factors.Since the current understanding of urban-rural human capital stock and differences in China is mostly confined to the comparison of educational level differences,therefore,after considering the comprehensiveness and reliability of human capital measurement,this paper,for the first time,uses the lifetime income method used by OECD to measure the human capital stock of various countries in the world to measure the urban-rural human capital stock of China by age,gender and academic completion,and analyzes the overall difference of human capital stock,as well as the gender difference and education level difference.This paper firstly analyzes the relationship between human capital and urban-rural economic gap theoretically and empirically,and clarifies the relationship between human capital difference and rural-urban economic gap.Then,this paper conducts an empirical study on the impact of human capital on the urban-rural economic gap,which is mainly divided into two parts:the first part constructs static and dynamic panel models to empirically analyze the average effect of human capital on the urban-rural economic gap,and investigates the sign and significance of the influence coefficient of the second term of urban-rural human capital difference on the urban-rural economic gap.the results show that the coefficient is significant and negative,indicating that human capital has nonlinear effect on the urban-rural economic gap,then the second part constructs the dynamic panel threshold model to empirically analyze the nonlinear effect of human capital on the urban-rural economic gap.The results show that:(1)There are not only overall differences in human capital stock between urban and rural areas,but also significant differences in gender and education level,it shows that the gender difference between urban and rural areas shows the trend of divergence,the male and female human capital stock in urban areas shows the trend of convergence,the male and female human capital stock in rural areas shows the trend of divergence.(2)The urban-rural human capital difference is the Granger cause of the urban-rural economic gap and the urban-rural residents income gap,the impact of urban-rural human capital difference on the structure of urban-rural economic gap is lasting and has a large variance contribution.The urban-rural economic gap is the Granger cause of the urban-rural residents income gap.The impact of the structural shock on the urban-rural income gap lasts for a long time and the variance contribution is greater than the urban-rural human capital difference.(3)Comparing the static and dynamic panel model parameter estimation,the urban-rural human capital difference has a significant influence on the urban-rural economic gap and basically the same,compared with the influence coefficient of urban-rural material capital difference on urban-rural economic gap,although similar in the static panel model,much larger in the dynamic panel model,the impact of human capital difference on economic gap between urban and rural areas is also relatively stable.The second term of urban-rural human capital difference has a significant and negative impact on the urban-rural economic gap.During the observation period,the influence coefficient of urbanization on the urban-rural economic gap was positive,it shows that at the current stage of China's economic development,the fact that the promotion of urbanization will widen the economic gap between urban and rural areas is contrary to the theory.This fact has much to do with the great difference between urban and rural human capital stock in China.(4)The human capital threshold effect of urban-rural economic gap is significant.the impact of urban-rural human capital difference in areas below the threshold value is greater than that in areas above the threshold value.It presents the illusion that the urban-rural economic gap will narrow when the urban-rural human capital difference continues to increase after it is higher than the threshold value.It shows that in urban where the human capital stock has reached a certain scale,the demand for human capital is not quantity but quality,and the increase of human capital stock with the same quality level as in rural areas can not bring the same economic growth.The effect of urban-rural material capital difference on urban-rural economic gap is affected by urban-rural human capital difference,and shows a trend of change consistent with urban-rural human capital difference.The distribution of each region in the district system divided according to the threshold value of urban-rural human capital difference is closely related to its own urbanization degree.It is found in the analysis of human capital threshold effect of urban-rural economic gap in the process of urbanization,the effect of urbanization on the urban-rural economic gap is affected by the urban-rural human capital difference.It shows that the promotion of urbanization in areas below the threshold value can help narrow the urban-rural economic gap,while the promotion of urbanization in areas above the threshold value will widen the urban-rural economic gap.