Empirical Analysis On Rural Human Capital Investment, Its Spill-over, And Development Gaps Between Rural And Urban Areas In China

In China, since the reform and opening to outside, the migrating scale of rural labor force has been getting larger and larger, the development gap between urban and rural areas has been widening. The uneven development of urban and rural economy is accelerating. Human capital is considered the determinative factor of modern economic development in the New Economic Growth Theory. There is great practical significance, on the view of human capital gap between urban and rural areas and the spill-over of rural human capital, to analyses and interpret the present issue on China's development gap between urban and rural areas.This thesis concludes five parts—introduction, theoretical analysis, experiential analysis, advice and conclusion.In the part of introduction (Chapter 1), the issue to study has been put forward, concerned concepts have been defined, the innovation and the study methods have been interpreted briefly.In the part of theoretical analysis (including Chapter 2, Chapter 3 and Chapter 4), according to the fact of urban and rural development in China, the fundamental theory of this study—the two- region model of the spill-over effect of human capital in urban and rural areas, has been presented, following the summary of relative research literature and theories about the spill-over effect of human capital (Chapter 2). Then, the thesis carries on a theoretical analysis on the status and causes of the gap between urban and rural areas (Chapter 3), illuminates the situation of human capital investment in urban and rural areas in China and the spill-over of rural human capital, interprets its different effect on urban and rural economic development (Chapter 4).In the part of experiential analysis (Chapter 5), taking two-region model of the spill-over effect of human capital as our theoretical fundamental, using co-integration test, ECM and Granger test in time series analysis, with the data from 1980 to 2004, the thesis carries on an experiential study on the correlation between investment, spill-over of rural human capital, and difference between urban and rural areas in China. Results show that gaps of human capital investment between urban and rural areas, compared with that of material investment, have placed a more important role in the change of development gaps between urban and rural areas in China. The spill-over of rural human capital investment indirectly leads to the widening of gaps and stagnation of rural economic growth.In the part of advice (Chapter 6), on the bases of theoretical and experiential analysis, advice and suggestions on how to narrow the gaps between urban and rural areas, and on how to stimulate rural economic development, have been brought forward.In the last part (Conclusion), the thesis has summarized the main content and results of this research, and has pointed out the deficiency of the study.