Research On The Fairness Of Rural Infrastructure Investment Based On Gini Coefficient

As a big agricultural country the issues concerning agriculture countryside and farmers are the key to China's economic and social development. They are also the key to building China into a well-off society in an all-round way. However since the reform and opening up our government has implemented many policies including the policy of giving priority to efficiency with due consideration to fairness and the policy which allows some people to become rich firstly. These policies not only inevitably have caused the imbalance of economic development in various regions of our country but also led to the fairness issue in terms of rural infrastructure investment among the eastern central and western regions. The rural infrastructure which is regarded as the crucial condition of rural economic and social development plays an irreplaceable role in improving the agricultural efficiency reducing agricultural products cost and building a more convenient life for farmers. The fair development of rural infrastructure investment directly affects the process of building a well-off society in an all-round way. So the research about rural infrastructure investment fairness has important theoretical and practical significance.This paper firstly defines the fairness of investment on rural infrastructure by analyzing the connotation and characteristics of rural infrastructure investment and combing theories and principles related equity. And then this paper researches and analyzes the present situation of rural infrastructure investment. By taking the agricultural tax reform as the dividing line this paper studies the spatial distribution of rural infrastructure investment in China from the perspective of total amount of investment and the per capita possession of infrastructure investment by qualitative and quantitative analysis. This paper comes to the conclusion about the present situation of rural infrastructure investment and the factors affecting the present situation of rural infrastructure investment. Then the paper compares the evaluation methods of resources allocation fairness and selects the measurement method to measure the rural infrastructure investment fairness this paper goes on empirically analyzing the fairness of rural infrastructure investment by using the inter-provincial panel data from 1991 to 2013.The paper comes to the conclusion about rural infrastructure investment fairness according to the results of empirical analysis. Finally the paper reviews the conclusions and puts forward the corresponding policy recommendations combined with the actual situation of the rural area of our country provides a theoretical reference for improving rural infrastructure investment fairness in China. In this paper the following conclusions are drawn through the normative and empirical analysis of the rural infrastructure investment fairness:(1)Through the analysis of the content in all dimensions of equity theory in the resources allocation area this paper considers that rural infrastructure investment fairness is a systematic concept including three aspects opportunity fairness procedural fairness and result fairness. In rural infrastructure investment fairness system it is utmost important to ensure that each ruralresident is able to obtain fair opportunity in rural infrastructure investment. And secondly the government should formulate relevant procedures to ensure the realization of final result fairness It needs to be emphasized that the result fairness of rural infrastructure investment is not equal to its absolute amount. However the real result of fairness in the country is to ensure those who have a relatively small occupancy of rural infrastructure to obtain the maximum benefit.(2)By dividing our country into eastern central and western regions this paper analyzes the change trend of the total amount and the per capita possession of rural infrastructure investment during the period from 1991 to 2013 and finds the regional differences between rural infrastructure investment in the total amount and per capita possession. This study also analyzes the factors which caused regional differences through combining with the rural tax reformation and rural infrastructure investment system.(3) By comparing the fairness measure methods of resources distribution firstly, this paper adopts the Gini coefficient method to analyze the fairness of investment in rural infrastructure quantitatively. Then this paper compares and analyzes the calculation methods of Gini coefficient. And finally this paper selects the average difference method to calculate the Gini coefficient of rural infrastructure investment.(4)The results of Gini coefficient by average difference method show that the development trend of China's rural infrastructure investment during the period from 1991 to2013 is towards to direction of fair but during the period from 1991 to 1996 and the period from2002 to 2005 the Gini coefficient is greater than 0.4(fair warning line) and the Gini coefficient is even greater than 0.5 during the period from 1992 to 1995. It shows that the rural infrastructure investment is in a serious unfair state. After 2006 the Gini coefficient of investment in rural infrastructure has been less than 0.4 which shows that China's rural infrastructure investment becomes fairer with the support of national policy.(5)In the process of promoting the fairness development of the rural infrastructure investment government should do something including strengthening the financial aid properly adjusting the investment direction to the central and western regions establishing perfect private investment mechanism broadening the channels for rural infrastructure investment improving the financial supervision system and the financial disclosure system of the basic level government reducing the vulnerability of financial fund in the process of rural infrastructure investment.