Growth In Rural China Research Articles

Public Service Equalization, Digital Financial inclusion and the Rural Revitalization: Evidence from Chinese 283 prefecture-level cities

While China has made significant strides in poverty alleviation, the persistent urban-rural divide poses challenges for sustainable development. Previous studies have explored various factors influencing rural revitalization, yet the interplay between public service equalization, digital financial inclusion, and rural development remains understudied. This research investigates how public service equalization impacts rural revitalization in China and examines the moderating role of digital financial inclusion. Using panel data from 283 prefecture-level cities from 2011 to 2021, we employ a fixed-effects model and conduct robustness checks including endogeneity tests and alternative specifications. Our findings reveal that public service equalization positively influences rural revitalization, with both accessibility and beneficiality dimensions playing crucial roles. Importantly, digital financial inclusion enhances this positive impact, suggesting a synergistic effect. These results underscore the need for a holistic approach integrating public service provision and digital financial services to promote inclusive growth in rural China. By elucidating the mechanisms through which these factors interact, our study contributes to the broader literature on rural development and offers policymakers valuable insights for designing effective rural revitalization strategies.

Digital literacy, relative poverty, and common prosperity for rural households

Digital transformation has emerged as a crucial driver of economic development, yet its impact on rural China's socioeconomic landscape remains understudied. This research investigates how digital literacy influences common prosperity and relative poverty in rural China using comprehensive household-level data from the 2018 China Family Panel Studies (CFPS). Through robust econometric analysis, including multiple regression models and structural equation modeling, we examine both the direct effects of digital literacy on household economic outcomes and its indirect effects through the mediating channel of relative poverty. Our findings demonstrate that a one standard deviation increase in digital literacy scores corresponds to a 12.3 % reduction in relative poverty and a 15.7 % increase in household income, with these effects amplified in China's western regions and among unmarried individuals. The results are robust to various model specifications and controls for potential endogeneity. By establishing the causal pathways between digital skills and economic well-being, this study provides empirical evidence for policymakers to design targeted interventions that leverage digital literacy as a tool for reducing rural-urban disparities. Our findings contribute to the growing literature on digital inclusion and suggest that investing in digital skills training could be a cost-effective strategy for promoting inclusive growth in rural China.

County-level carbon emissions in the guanzhong area of Shaanxi province: towards achieving China’s dual carbon goals

China’s rapid urbanization has significantly impacted carbon emissions in rural areas, driving the need for region-specific carbon management strategies to achieve the country’s dual carbon goals. However, previous research has primarily focused on large urban centers, leaving a gap in understanding the spatial and temporal patterns of carbon emissions at the county level in rural regions. This study focuses on the Guanzhong region of Shaanxi Province and develops a county-level carbon emission accounting system based on geographic, socio-economic, and land-use data. The carbon emissions are categorized into energy, industrial processes, agriculture, and waste management. Key findings indicate that industrial and residential sectors are the primary contributors to carbon emissions, with Xi’an being the largest emitter. Carbon emission intensity follows a ranking of Xi’an < Weinan < Baoji < Xianyang < Tongchuan. Spatial patterns show a “core-edge” distribution, with higher emissions in urban centers and lower emissions in rural areas. The study also highlights the carbon sink potential in the southern Qinling National Park. This research provides a valuable framework for rural low-carbon development and offers critical insights for policymakers aiming to balance carbon reduction and economic growth in rural China.

E-commerce development, poverty reduction and income growth in rural China

PurposeThis research examines the impact of the National Rural E-commerce Comprehensive Demonstration Project (NRECDP) on poverty reduction and income growth in rural China.Design/methodology/approachThe study develops a theoretical framework, which considers the role of geographical, technological, institutional and cultural factors for the e-commerce poverty alleviation (e-CPA) model. Empirically, this study applies the difference-in-differences (DID) model and the event study approach to evaluate the effectiveness of NRECDP on the basis of large-scale county-level and household-level panel data spanning 2010 to 2020.FindingsThe study found that the NRECDP, as a government-led, information and communication technology (ICT)-enabled, market-based program, has led to a significant increase in per capita output of primary industry employees, as well as in the disposable income of rural residents, especially those in national-level poverty-stricken (NP) counties. The interventions of the NRECDP achieved these positive outcomes through transportation and Internet infrastructure improvement, ICT adoption and human capital accumulation in impoverished towns and villages in remote rural areas. These effects are larger in the eastern region of China, followed by the central region, whereas the weakest effects were found in the western region. However, we found little evidence of the NRECDP increasing household developmental expenditure.Research limitations/implicationsThe study findings have important practical and policy implications for rural e-commerce development and self-sustained poverty alleviation solutions. The research revealed the significance of government NRECDP interventions for increasing rural income, reducing living costs, and empowering the rural population in its multiple social roles, namely, as consumers, producers, employees and microentrepreneurs. The local cultural context may also play a role in ICT adoption and entrepreneurship cultivation with a downstream effect on the effectiveness of e-CPA practices. Policymakers would need to ensure a supportive entrepreneur-friendly environment for rural e-commerce development and continue implementing progressive policies for poverty alleviation.Originality/valueThis study explores poverty alleviation issues in China by developing for the first time a multi-faceted framework that is subsequently tested by both county-level and household-level large-scale observations. Also, it is the first study to provide nationwide empirical evidence on the effectiveness of e-CPA in narrowing down the spatial and digital divides in China. In addition to the impact of geography, technology and governmental support, this study also sheds light on the role of culture in the adoption and diffusion of digital technologies and as a source of local entrepreneurial opportunities.

The Impact of Economic Development on Inadequate Education Resources in Rural China

This research examines the intricate relationship between economic development and education resources in rural China. While China's rapid economic development has catalyzed significant improvements in the nation's overall educational landscape, this progress has not been evenly distributed across urban and rural areas, leading to widening educational disparities. The study explores the multifaceted nature of these disparities, characterized by disproportionate resource allocation, inferior school infrastructure in rural areas, and a widening digital divide. Despite rural areas housing a considerable portion of China's student population, these regions grapple with numerous challenges, including inadequate resource allocation, low teacher quality, poor school infrastructure, and limited access to digital technologies. The consequences are profound, hampering rural students' academic performance and limiting their opportunities for upward mobility. This paper underscores the critical need to address these disparities as part of China's broader efforts towards sustainable development and social equity. In doing so, it offers valuable insights for policymakers, educators, and development practitioners, illustrating on potential intervention areas to foster educational equity and promote inclusive growth in rural China.

Can citrus farmers earn more from selling online?

Online sales are essential for linking smallholder farmers to a wide range of markets. In essence, online sales not only influence the income received from selling a specific product but also generate spillover effects on total farm income and household income because they promote the sales of other agricultural products and generate regional off-farm work opportunities (e.g. product sorting, packaging, and delivery). Taking citrus as an example, this study explores the income effects of online sales with a focus on net returns from citrus production, net farm income, and household income. We used an endogenous treatment regression model to address the self-selection bias issues of online sales and estimated data collected from 926 citrus-producing households in Jiangxi Province, China. The results show that online citrus sales boost income growth in rural China. Specifically, online sales significantly increased net returns from citrus production, net farm income, and household income by 5,000 Yuan/capita, 8,580 Yuan/capita, and 17,830 Yuan/capita, respectively. The income-enhancing effects of online sales are greater for female household heads than they are for their male counterparts. Our findings emphasise the importance of promoting online sales to improve rural household welfare.

High-Quality Growth in Rural China

Research has often overlooked the role of digital innovation in driving social transformation, especially in underserved rural areas, but the integration of digital technology is promoting rural high-quality development through the establishment of digital entrepreneurial ecosystems. Approaching from a complex systems perspective, this study contends that these ecosystems navigate multiple routes to enhance total factor productivity (TFP) in rural settings. Performing a configurational analysis of a sample of 60 demonstration counties for rural revitalization in China, this study identifies three primary pathways yielding high TFP: an investment-led model under government stewardship, a collaborative model steered by both government and social capital, and a talent-centric model governed by digital market forces. Conversely, this study also pinpoints a pathway that does not yield high TFP. Theoretical and practical insights are offered for researchers and practitioners exploring digital innovation and its implications for rural entrepreneurial ecosystems.

Linking farmers to markets: Does cooperative membership facilitate e-commerce adoption and income growth in rural China?

This study uses the 2020 China Rural Revitalization Survey to investigate the associations between cooperative membership, E-commerce adoption, and household income. Using the conditional mixed process framework, we find that cooperative membership promotes rural households’ e-commerce adoption, and cooperative membership and e-commerce adoption significantly increase rural household income. The two-stage predictor substitution approach confirms this result. Further, participating in different types of cooperatives has heterogeneous effects on the e-commerce adoption decision and household income growth. However, regardless of whether or which cooperative households participate in, e-commerce adoption significantly increases household income. Policymakers can work with e-commerce enterprises, leverage the current cooperatives, especially the village stock economic and market cooperative, and set up e-commerce cooperatives to popularize e-commerce-related knowledge to encourage e-commerce adoption among rural households. Further, considering the regional disparities in e-commerce adoption, it is essential to strengthen the policy support for the rural households residing in Central and Western China to narrow the “digital divide.”

Research on the Pro-Poorness of Economic Growth in Rural China

Based on the pro-poor index and pro-poor curve measurement method of economic growth, this paper uses the data of Chinese Family Panel Studies to measure the pro-poorness of economic growth in rural areas of China. The study found that, from 2014 to 2018, the economic growth of rural areas in China was absolutely pro-poor, the economic growth in 2014–2016 was relatively non-pro-poor, and the economic growth in 2016–2018 was relatively pro-poor. From the perspective of household income structure, optimizing the pro-poorness of economic growth requires continuously increasing the wage income of low-income households, and continuing to implement fiscal transfer policies that are more favorable to low-income households. From the perspective of the human capital of households, optimizing the pro-poorness of economic growth requires active family support policies to enable workers to better balance family and work responsibilities, and adopt target location strategies to give special care to families with special difficulties while increasing investment in public services.

Legitimacy, Organisational Capacity, and Church Growth in Rural China: 1978-2018

The resurgence of rural Christianity in mainland China after reform and opening up has been a significant phenomenon. While previous studies have predominantly examined this revival through macro- or micro-level interpretations, this paper adopts a neo-institutionalist theoretical perspective to explore the growth of rural Christianity. Specifically, the study investigates the interaction between church organisation and the external environment, identifying religious legitimacy and organisational capacity as two central mechanisms that affect the divergent development of rural churches. By analysing the dynamics of these mechanisms, this study sheds light on the factors that have contributed to the differentiated growth of rural Christianity in mainland China.

Contract farming, animal epidemic disease outbreaks, and inclusive growth in rural China

ABSTRACT Contract farming (CF) is promoted as part of agricultural development policies in many countries. Few literature on CF has considered the animal epidemic risk, which significantly affects the total revenue and the re-distribution between the contract farmers and the enterprise. Using the ten-year nationwide household-level panel data, we investigate the Chinese poultry sector to analyse the inclusiveness of CF. We evaluate the impact of participating in CF on farmers’ income and asset endowments when animal epidemic diseases occur. The results confirm the insurance and discover the special re-distribution function of CF through adjusting product price. CF negatively affects large farmers’ poultry farming income while it could be mitigated during the animal epidemic disease outbreak. Meanwhile, participating in CF has a significant positive effect on small farmers’ assets when diseases occur. However, CF fails to be ‘inclusive’ in the presence of risks. The above positive effect is limited due to overall fewer participation opportunities available to small farmers. Policy implications and suggestions are derived to improve the inclusiveness of CF to small household farmers.

Rural development in the digital age: Does information and communication technology adoption contribute to credit access and income growth in rural China?

AbstractInformation and communication technology (ICT) plays an important role in rural livelihoods and household well‐being. Therefore, this study examines the impact of ICT adoption on farmers' decisions to access credit and the joint effects of ICT adoption and access to credit on household income using 2016 China Labour‐force Dynamics Survey data. Both recursive bivariate probit model and a selectivity‐corrected ordinary least square regression model are employed for the analysis. The results show that ICT adoption increases the probability of access to credit by 12.8% in rural China and empowers rural women and farm households in relatively less‐developed regions to access credit. ICT adoption and access to credit affect household income differently. ICT adoption significantly increases household income, while access to credit significantly reduces it, primarily because farmers do not use the acquired credit to invest in income‐generating farm and off‐farm business activities. ICT adoption has the largest positive impact on household income at the highest 90th quantile. Our findings suggest that improving rural ICT infrastructure to enhance farmers' ICT adoption and developing ICT‐based financial products to enable households to access sufficient funds can improve rural household welfare.

Energy transition, intensity growth, and policy evolution: Evidence from rural China

Influenced by the urban-rural energy dualism, developing rural energy is a matter of improving social equity rather than just correcting market imperfections in China. Energy transition and intensity growth have been two major characteristics of China's rural energy development for decades, leading to the evolution of rural energy policies. Based on 2608 provincial rural energy policies and rural energy consumption data from 1994 to 2014, this study investigates how energy policies evolve with energy transition and intensity growth in rural China. It proceeds by classifying provincial rural energy policies into five types and using the logit event history analysis model for first-time policy adoptions and the Cox model for subsequent policy adoptions. The findings are as follows: (1) energy transition has facilitated the first-time adoption of economic instruments, regulatory instruments, and supportive policy schemes, and the subsequent adoption of economic instruments and information and education policies, but hindered the subsequent adoption of supportive policy schemes; (2) energy intensity growth has promoted the first-time adoption of all policies and subsequent adoption of regulatory instruments and information and education policies; (3) energy dependence, PM2.5 concentration, carbon intensity, income, rural energy technicians, and urbanization rate significantly have influenced rural energy policy evolution. Corresponding policy implications are provided in the final section.

A Vector Error Correction Model (VECM) Approach in explaining the relationship between Fixed Investment and Economic Growth in Rural China


 
 
 A rural economy can be affected by fixed investment in a rural area positively or negatively. Investment in fixed assets is one of the core measures of capital spending in rural China and the rural economy is a prominent part of china’s national economy. It is important to study the dynamic relationship between fixed investment and economic growth in rural China. Based on time-series data from 1990 to 2016, this paper employed a Vector Error Correction Model (VECM) approach to lead the stationarity test, Cointegration test, stability test, and granger causality test. The result indicated that, in the long term, Fixed Investment fluctuation promotes GDP growth in rural China while GDP fluctuation is not the source of fixed investment increase in rural China.
 
 

Smartphone use and income growth in rural China: empirical results and policy implications

The diffusion of mobile information and communication technologies (ICTs) has important implications for rural economic development. Many studies have investigated the potential contributions of mobile ICTs to agricultural production and poverty reduction, but have failed to consider the wider income effects of the use of updated ICTs, such as smartphones. Our findings, based on household-level survey data from rural China and an endogenous switching regression model, indicate that gender, farmers’ education, farm size, and off-farm work participation are the main drivers of smartphone use. Further, we find that smartphone use increases farm income, off-farm income and household income substantially and there is a statistically significant difference in the income effects between male and female users of smartphones. Possible policy interventions from our findings include: (1) support to increase use of smartphones by households headed by women; and (2) a ‘win–win’ approach to rural development that includes improved hard (roads) and soft (education) infrastructure and encompasses the increased use of smartphones so as to increase both off-farm employment opportunities and farm and off-farm incomes.

China's Pro-Poor Growth: Measurement and Implications

ABSTRACT. Pro-poor growth has been the preeminent strategic framework of the international development community because it describes relationships between growth, inequality, and poverty. Assessing whether economic growth and income distributional changes are “pro-poor” has important policy implications and has become increasingly widespread in academic and policy societies. The article aims to measure the pro-poor growth in rural China from 1989 to 2009 through analyzing the household survey data collected by the China Health and Nutrition Survey. Among the main findings, from 1989 to 2006, China's economic growth in rural areas was relatively weakly pro-poor and poverty reduction mainly relied on the “trickle-down effect” of economic growth. However, since 2006, both the “trickle-down effect” of growth and changes in income distribution have reduced poverty. During this period, Chinese economic growth was pro-poor. Research on pro-poor growth based on more comprehensive data is urgently needed to advise policymakers to make relevant policies.

State Building and Long-Run Growth in Rural China

State Building and Long-Run Growth in Rural China

The changing determinants of high school attainment in rural China

In recent years China has experienced a substantial increase in rural schooling levels and contemporaneous reforms in rural educational policies, including the nationwide adoption of free nine-year compulsory education, the two exempt and one compensation program, and the school consolidation policy. These developments point to the possibility that the determinants of rural education have changed. In this paper we examine empirically the determinants of rural high school attainment between 2002 and 2007. Using data from a nationwide household survey and a multilevel regression model with and without instrumental variables, we estimate the relationship between rural high school attainment and individual, family, and community level variables. We find that the size and significance of household income and other individual and household variables declined, while community characteristics and local public expenditures on schools continued to have a significant impact in both years. When we carry out the estimation using instrumental variables, the coefficients on parental education are no longer significant. We conclude that policy changes plus rapid income growth in rural China has brought about substantial change in the determinants of high school attainment, and that the widely observed correlation between parental and child education may be due to unobserved characteristics.

The Research on the Realization of the Low-carbon Non-agriculture Employment Growth in Rural China

The slow development of the service sector in China mainly lies in the lagging behind of rural services sector development in the rural area. Currently, the gap of per capita income between rural and urban areas in China is fifteen years, and employment quota of city service sector surpassed fifty percent fifteen years ago. However, the employment quota of the rural service sector in 2009 was less than ten percent. The reason may be the dispersive distribution of the rural population, such as the construction of immigrating towns Three Gorges Project, the construction of towns by canceling villages in Hei Longjiang Province, the group together of the southeast coastal industry. This thesis analyzes the promotion effect of people gathering on the development of service sector with the tool of building models and proposes that developing service sector is a low-carbon path for the economic development.

Did Higher Inequality Impede Growth in Rural China?

This paper estimates the relationship between initial village inequality and subsequent household income growth for a large sample of households in rural China. Using a rich longitudinal survey spanning the years 1987-2002, and controlling for an array of household and village characteristics, the paper finds that households located in higher inequality villages experienced significantly lower income growth through the 1990s. However, local inequality’s predictive power and effects are significantly diminished by the end of the sample. The paper exploits several advantages of the household-level data to explore hypotheses that shed light on the channels by which inequality affects growth. Biases due to aggregation and heterogeneity of returns to own-resources, previously suggested as candidate explanations for the relationship, are both ruled out. Instead, the evidence points to unobserved village institutions at the time of economic reforms that were associated with household access to higher income activities as the source of the link between inequality and growth. The empirical analysis addresses a number of pertinent econometric issues including measurement error and attrition, but underscores others that are likely to be intractable for all investigations of the inequality-growth relationship.