The Influence Of Industrial Struture Adjustment On The Urban-rural Income Gap In The Yangtze River Economic Belt

Since the reform and opening up,China’s economy has achieved rapid growth and the income of rural residents in China has increased significantly,but the income level is still low compared to urban residents,and the urban-rural income gap has not been effectively improved.The imbalance between urban and rural economic development implied behind the urban-rural income gap has become a hidden danger that restricts China’s sustained high-quality economic growth and a prominent contradiction that concerns the stable development of the country.How to narrow the urban-rural income gap has been an important research issue in the economics field.Industrial restructuring is one of the key influencing factors of the urban-rural income gap,but the academic community has not yet reached a consensus on its impact effect.On the one hand,industrial restructuring reduces the urban-rural income gap by equalizing the labor productivity of three industries and narrowing the wage rate gap between industries;on the other hand,industrial restructuring leads to a mismatch between industrial structure and employment structure,which widens the urban-rural income gap.Then,what kind of impact does industrial restructuring have on the urban-rural income gap? What is its mechanism of action? Under the new economic normal where the economic development mode is changing from the secondary industry leading to the coordinated development of three industries,it is of great theoretical value and practical significance to explore how to promote the balanced development of urban-rural income from the perspective of industrial structure adjustment to achieve the goal of common prosperity.Given that the Yangtze River Economic Belt is an important strategic region affecting China’s economic development and an important grasp of China’s current industrial structure transformation and upgrading,it is representative to take the Yangtze River Economic Belt as the research object.Based on industrial structure theory,this study uses municipal data of 108 prefecture-level cities in the Yangtze River Economic Belt for 17 consecutive years from 2003-2019 as the analysis panel to examine the impact of industrial structure on urban-rural income disparity.Firstly,we summarize the views of domestic and foreign scholars and related theories,and elaborate the mechanism of the rationalization and advanced industrial structure on the urban-rural income gap.Second,the index measurement system of industrial structure adjustment and urban-rural income gap is constructed to measure the rationalization of industrial structure,advanced industrial structure,and urban-rural income gap in the Yangtze River Economic Belt region from 2003 to 2019,and to portray their spatial and temporal evolution trends.Again,the threshold effect of industrial structure rationalization and advanced industrial structure on urban-rural income gap is verified based on the double threshold model with urbanization rate as the threshold variable.Finally,a spatial econometric model is established using the geographic adjacency matrix to test the spatial effects of industrial structure rationalization and advancedization on the urban-rural income gap,and the effects are decomposed.The specific research results show that :(1)the level of industrial structure rationalization and advancedization in Yangtze River Economic Zone fluctuates up,the urban-rural income gap fluctuates down,and the difference between the upper and lower reaches of Yangtze River Economic Zone is obvious.(2)Rationalization of industrial structure can significantly reduce the urban-rural income gap,and there is a threshold effect of first lowering and then raising.That is,overall,rationalization helps alleviate urban-rural income inequality,but its effect changes in a U-shape as the urbanization rate deepens.The advanced industrial structure will widen the urban-rural income gap,and there is a threshold effect of first increasing and then decreasing.In other words,the advanced development will aggravate the urban-rural income inequality,but with the deepening of urbanization,its role in widening the urban-rural income gap will become smaller and smaller.(3)The analysis results of the spatial Durbin model are consistent with the threshold model and indicate that industrial structure rationalization and advanced development have spatial spillover effects on urban-rural income disparity.The rationalization and advanced industrial structure in this region can not only act on the urban-rural income gap in this region,but also affect the urban-rural income equity in neighboring regions and even the whole Yangtze River Economic Belt.Based on the above findings,this study proposes the following policy recommendations: first,strengthen the support of science and technology to promote the rationalization of industrial structure;second,optimize the employment structure to match the advanced industrial structure;third,play the role of government guidance and regulation to guarantee the fairness of redistribution;fourth,promote the industrial structure adjustment according to local conditions and coordinate the coordinated development of the upper,middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River Economic Belt.