Is There a Kuznets Curve in China’s Rural Area?—An Empirical Analysis on Provincial Panel Data

Abstract

The academia always argue about whether there is a Kuznets curve for a long time, however, rare people care about Kuznets curve in countryside. The thesis first analyzes the possibility of the Kuznets curve in China’ rural area theoretically; and then based on the provincial panel data, the thesis adopts fixed effect and random effect models to analyze the relationship between China’s rural economic growth and income distribution inequality among rural residents, so as to verify whether the Kuznets curve is applicable in the rural area of our country. The results show that there is a Kuznets curve in the process of rural economic development in China, namely there is a reversed U-shaped relationship between rural economic growth and income inequality within rural residents. At the same time, the economic growth of most provinces has not yet reached the inflection point to reduce the income inequality degree.