Urban–rural gap and poverty traps in China: A prefecture level analysis

Jian-Xin Wu and Ling-Yun He

Applied Economics, 2018, vol. 50, issue 30, 3300-3314

Abstract: Urban–rural gap and regional inequality are long-standing problems in China and result in considerable number of studies. This article examines the dynamic behaviours of incomes for both urban and rural areas with a prefectural data set. The analysis is conducted by using a distribution dynamics approach, which have advantages in examination on persistence, polarization and convergence clubs. The results show that persistence and immobility are the dominant characteristics in the income distribution dynamics. The prefectural urban and rural areas converge into their own steady states differentiated in income levels. This pattern of urban–rural gap also exists in three regional groups, namely the eastern, central and western regions. Examination on the dynamics of the poorest areas shows that geographical poverty traps exist in both urban and rural prefectural areas. Our results indicate that more policy interventions are required to narrow down the urban–rural gap and to eliminate the poverty traps in China.

Date: 2018
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (7)

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/00036846.2017.1420890 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
Working Paper: Urban-rural gap and poverty traps in China: A prefecture level analysis (2016)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:applec:v:50:y:2018:i:30:p:3300-3314

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/RAEC20

DOI: 10.1080/00036846.2017.1420890

Access Statistics for this article

Applied Economics is currently edited by Anita Phillips

More articles in Applied Economics from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().