A Study On The Impact Of Infrastructure Investment Imbalance On The Income Gap Between Urban And Rural Areas

The average income ratio of urban and rural residents in China was 2.62 times from 1978 to 2020,and 2.76 times in the past decade,which was significantly higher than 2.16 times in the early decade after 1978.Although the income gap between urban and rural areas has shrunk in recent years,under the background of the international tension and the raging new crown epidemic,the downward pressure on China’s economy has not decreased but increased,and the channels for increasing residents’ employment and income have also been restricted from many aspects.In 2021,the 14 th Five-Year Plan clearly set "a significant reduction in the gap between urban and rural areas and the gap between residents’ living standards" as one of the long-term goals for2035,and proposed to fully adhere to the continuous promotion of rural revitalization work,especially pay attention to the follow-up of rural infrastructure work.As an important counter-cyclical adjustment tool,infrastructure construction can effectively stimulate the consumer demand of residents and the market,drive the revitalization of the market,promote the optimization and upgrading of the rural industrial structure,and promote the well-being of the people with economic growth.Based on the research related to existing infrastructure and residents’ income,this paper constructs a theoretical model containing capital and labor factors,introduces infrastructure investment factors to expand the original model into a three-factor CES production function model,and derives the inference that "urban and rural infrastructure gap leads to urban and rural income gap" through mathematical derivation.Then,the panel data of 30 provinces and cities in China from 2003 to 2020 in addition to Hong Kong,Macao,Taiwan and Tibet were selected to establish specific statistical models for inference verification and research analysis,and the main conclusions obtained were as follows:First,infrastructure investment has a significant role in promoting residents’ income.The effect of increasing infrastructure income in rural areas is significantly lower than that of the whole society,and the output capacity of infrastructure economy is lacking compared with that of urban areas.Judging from the results of regional heterogeneity,infrastructure investment can significantly promote the improvement of the income level of residents in various regions,and the effect of increasing infrastructure revenue decreased sequentially in the western,eastern and central regions.Second,between urban and rural residents,the gap in infrastructure will cause income disparities.Among them,the gap between urban and rural infrastructure investment,that is,the biased unbalanced investment in urban and rural infrastructure,can affect the income gap of residents more.Third,the gap in infrastructure between urban and rural areas will create a gap in labor productivity between agriculture and non-agricultural industries,which will eventually manifest itself as a gap between residents’ incomes.With the intensification of the gap between industrial and agricultural labor productivity,the gap in per capita capital stock of urban and rural infrastructure caused by unbalanced investment in infrastructure will have a greater positive role in promoting the income gap between urban and rural residents.Based on the above research conclusions,from the perspective of the imbalance between urban and rural infrastructure investment,this paper proposes to effectively narrow the urban and rural income gap in various regions of China: First,improve the direct income increase effect and indirect income increase effect of infrastructure in rural areas.Second,continue to strengthen rural infrastructure investment and improve the imbalance between urban and rural infrastructure investment.Third,promote the construction of traditional rural infrastructure and the construction of new infrastructure in parallel.