Analysis Of The Impact Of Human Capital Investment On Urban-rural Income Gap In China ——Evidence From Panel Thresholds In 31 Provinces In China

Since the reform and opening up more than 40 years ago,both the national economic aggregate and the income level of residents have increased significantly,but there are still many deficiencies in the process of economic development,mainly manifested in the unbalanced regional economic development,uneven distribution of economic achievements,and the income gap between urban and rural areas has always been at a high level.At present,China is in the critical period of economic transformation.Narrowing the income gap between urban and rural areas and expanding human capital accumulation are of great significance for China’s sustainable economic development,social stability and high-quality economic development.According to the theory of human capital,human capital not only plays an active role in promoting the economic development of a country,but also has a positive impact on improving the income level of residents.This paper argues that in the development and perfection of China’s market economy,residents’ income will gradually become dependent on their own labor,and the supply of labor is based on individual human capital.Based on this,from the perspective of human capital,this paper analyzes the impact of the urban-rural income gap between China and eastern,central,western and northeastern regions,which has certain positive significance for balancing regional economic development and narrowing the urban-rural income gap.This paper first summarizes domestic and foreign literature,and expounds human capital and other related concepts,and clarifies the connotation of human capital and urban-rural income gap.On this basis,this paper analyzes the impact of human capital investment differences between urban and rural areas on urban-rural income gap from three human capital investment perspectives of education,health and labor mobility.Secondly,it analyzes the current situation of human capital investment and income gap between urban and rural areas in eastern China,central China,western China and northeastern China from these three aspects.The statistical data of 31 provinces and cities in China from 2007 to 2019 are selected to comprehensively analyze the impact of human capital investment on urban-rural income gap in different regions through basic regression,heterogeneity test,robustness test and fixed effect model of panel threshold model.The empirical results show that: first,on the whole,the expansion of the relative gap between urban and rural residents’ human capital investment will significantly widen the urban-rural income gap in China,and the investment of urban and rural labor mobility has the greatest impact on the urban-rural income gap.At the same time,from the threshold regression results,there is a significant non-linear relationship between the impact of the relative gap between urban and rural human capital investment and the relative income gap between urban and rural residents.Second,from different regions,the eastern region has the greatest impact on the income gap;Urban and rural health investment has the greatest impact on the income gap in central China.The western region has the greatest impact on the income gap.The northeast region has the greatest impact on the income gap.Finally,based on the analysis of the current situation and the results of empirical research,this paper puts forward some suggestions to increase rural residents’ investment in human capital and narrow the urban-rural income gap.