社会信任与城乡居民收入差距的实证研究

An Empirical Study of Social Trust and Income Gap between Urban and Rural Residents

农户收入增长乏力是导致城乡居民收入差距拉大的重要原因。使用2018年中国家庭追踪调查(CFPS)数据库中的农民个人社会信任指标,将其与微观个人数据匹配,研究社会信任对农民个人收入的影响。研究结果表明,在控制个人特征和地区特征变量后,社会信任对于提高农民收入和减缓贫困具有显著积极影响。采用2SLS回归方法、PSM回归方法约束了内生性、样本自选择问题,研究结论依然保持稳健。细分样本显示,这种影响对于30~40岁、有大学教育背景的农民群体更加明显。进一步分析发现,个体信念和教育人力资本是社会信任影响农民个人收入的重要传导机制。

The weak growth of farmers'income is an important cause of the increasing income gap between urban and rural residents.This paper uses the indicator of the farmers'personal social trust in the China Family Tracking Survey(CFPS)2018 database and matches it with micro-personal data to study the impact of social trust on farmers'personal income.The results show that after controlling for individual characteristics and regional characteristics,social trust has a significant positive effect on improving farmers'income and alleviating poverty.In this paper,2SLS regression method and PSM regression method are adopted to constrain endogeneity and sample self-selection problems,and the research conclusion remains robust.A breakdown of the sample showed that the effect was more pronounced for farmers aged 30 to 40 with a university education.Further analysis shows that individual belief and educational human capital are important transmission mechanisms of social trust affecting individual income of farmers.This paper expands the theoretical research scope of rural social capital and provides a new perspective and empirical evidence for alleviating the income gap between urban and rural areas.