1. Demystifying the geography of income inequality in rural China: A transitional framework
- Author
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Yansui Liu, Jinlong Gao, Yuanyuan Cai, and Jianglong Chen
- Subjects
Sociology and Political Science ,Inequality ,business.industry ,media_common.quotation_subject ,05 social sciences ,Geography, Planning and Development ,0211 other engineering and technologies ,0507 social and economic geography ,Distribution (economics) ,021107 urban & regional planning ,02 engineering and technology ,Development ,Globalization ,Geography ,Economic inequality ,Net income ,Urbanization ,Per capita ,Economic geography ,Marketization ,business ,050703 geography ,media_common - Abstract
In this paper, we first detect the uneven distribution of regional inequality in rural China with the per capita net income data at county level, and then diagnose the various factors that contribute to this as well as its driving mechanisms using the four-dimension transitional framework. The results suggest that rural inequalities are clustered at the province level, and those most unequal regions tend to be geographically gathered. Stemming from the framework, the study reveals that the spatio-temporal disparity in rural inequality is deeply embedded in the quadruple-transition process of marketization, globalization, decentralization and urbanization. Employing both the pooled OLS and spatial regime models, the study further unfolds that influences of the transition processes are diversified across regions and study periods. We finally argue that human investment rather than economic growth plays the key role in reducing the rural inequality in eastern provinces, and that the formulation of policies in line with regional characteristics would be helpful to address or alleviate rural inequality.
- Published
- 2022