Research On The Impact Of China’s Industrial Restructuring On The Income Gap Between Industries

After more than 40 years of rapid growth in China’s economy,structural contradictions in economic development have begun to emerge.From the perspective of industrial structure,the industrial structure measured by the quantitative dimension is becoming more advanced,but the quality level of the advanced industrial structure is low and the trend of industrial structure rationalization is not smooth.From the perspective of income distribution,the contribution of inter-industry income inequality to total income inequality is increasing.Especially,the current national development is simultaneously facing external risks such as foreign counter-globalization,hegemony and geopolitical wars and internal pressures such as domestic economic slowdown,fiscal burden,technological progress and low-carbon development,therefore,adjusting industrial structure and improving income distribution policies will be powerful grips if we want to successfully achieve economic transformation and cross the income trap of middle countries.Based on this,this paper first measured the industrial structural adjustment indicators at the national,regional and provincial levels from 1978 to 2020,measured the inter-industry income disparity indicators at the national,regional and provincial levels from 1995 to 2020 using the extreme difference,log variance,Gini coefficient and Thiel index,and used the Dagum Gini coefficient decomposition method to The regional decomposition was conducted.Then,provincial panel data sets for1995-2020 were constructed,descriptive statistics and correlations were analyzed for data quality and relationships,and the effects of industrial restructuring on inter-industry income disparity were analyzed empirically using a fixed-effects model,and the results still held after a series of robustness tests.Finally,the heterogeneity of the impact of industrial restructuring on the inter-industry income gap is further explored,and the mechanisms and channels of action to achieve this impact are analyzed.It is found that(1)China’s employment structure lags behind the change in output structure,with the industrial sector under-performing the absorption of surplus labor in the agricultural sector and the service sector relatively over-absorbing it.This has led to an increasingly advanced industrial structure in China,while the rationalization of industrial structure shows fluctuations.In terms of the quality of industrial structure rationalization and industrial structure advancement by region,the eastern part is the best,the central part is the second best,and the western part is the worst;in terms of the quantity of industrial structure advancement,from 1978 to 1999,the eastern part was the best,the central and western parts were closer,and since the implementation of the western development(2000),the western part was the best,the eastern part was the second best,and the central part was the second worst.From the results of inter-industry income gap indicators measurement,the absolute value of inter-industry income gap is expanding,and the relative value shows a fluctuating trend of rising-declining-oscillating upward.At the regional level,the inter-industry income gap is ranked by high and low values,and the ranking of inter-industry income gap among Chinese regions evolves from eastern,central and western to eastern,western and central.(2)The results of the benchmark regression indicate that industrial structure rationalization and industrial structure advanced by quantitative measures widen the inter-industry income gap,while industrial structure advanced by qualitative measures narrow the inter-industry income gap.(3)Heterogeneity analysis reveals that this phenomenon does not hold in all subsamples,for example,the effect of industrial structure rationalization on the widening of the inter-industry income gap is not significant in the inland region;industrial structure advancement measured by quantity reduces rather than widens the inter-industry income gap in the coastal region.The effect of advanced industrial structure measured by quality on inter-industry income gap within monopolistic industries and secondary industries is not significant.(4)Mechanism analysis finds that industrial structure advanced(qualitative)can narrow the inter-industry income gap by increasing labor productivity;industrial structure rationalization speeds up labor transfer and inevitably widens the inter-industry income gap in the process;industrial structure advanced(quantitative)widens the inter-industry income gap only when the employment structure is more advanced.Finally,on the basis of summarizing the theoretical analysis and empirical results,the policy suggestions of this paper are put forward.First,to speed up the construction of labor market integration,deepen the labor market reform and reduce the administrative monopoly of industries;second,to promote the integration and development of three industries and eliminate the obstacles of technology diffusion among industries;third,to pay attention to the quality of industrial restructuring and avoid the blind pursuit of advanced;fourth,to increase the relevant policy incentives to realize the industrial transfer among domestic regions;fifth,to control the income of monopolistic industries and increase the proportion of labor income.