中国城乡收入差距收敛性及倒U形检验

Analysis of Impact Factors and Inverted U-Shape Test of Chinese Urban-Rural Income Gap Based on Theil's Index

本文使用泰尔指数度量我国城乡收入差距,研究收入差距的收敛性,并检验经济发展水平、教育进步及城市化进程的影响是否满足倒U形假说。理论分析和实证检验均表明泰尔指数随城市化进程表现出倒U形变化模式。实证研究发现,教育对收入不平等的影响很可能存在倒U形,并强于城市化的影响;而以人均GDP度量的经济发展水平是最重要的影响因素,并呈现单调增加的特征;FDI没有显示出影响作用,而进出口贸易则会显著加剧收入不平等。研究结果表明,社会发展并不必然会降低收入不平等,政府需要改善和调整收入分配政策以减少城乡收入差距。

This paper measures Chinese urban-rural income inequality with Theil's index,researches its main impact factors and tests whether the influence of economic development,education advancement and urbanization process satisfies inverted U-shape hypothesis.Both the theoretical analysis and empirical test show that Theil's index evolves to form inverted U-shape curve with urbanization.At the same time,there are compelling evidences to reveal that the education factor contributed to income inequality leads to support inverted U-shape hypothesis,even overriding the urbanization factor.The economic development indicated by GDP per capita seems to have the strongest effect and widens income inequality,featuring no inverted U-shape trend but monotonous increment.FDI does not show any influence,but imports and exports result in income inequality dramatically.The results demonstrate that social development is not bound to minimize income inequality,which suggests that urban-rural income gap entail the reviews and adjustments of government policies.