1. Instruction
On the occasion of the centenary of the founding of the Communist Party of China (CPC), China has won an overall victory in the battle against poverty. All the 98.99 million rural residents living below the current poverty line have been lifted out of poverty. A total of 832 impoverished counties and 128,000 impoverished villages have been lifted out of poverty and this marks the completion of the arduous task of eradicating absolute poverty. Since 2012, more than 10 million people have been lifted out of poverty every year, and the income level of the impoverished population has risen significantly. All of them have achieved the goal of poverty reduction set in the UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, 10 years ahead of schedule [
1]. With the rapid development of China’s economy, the gap between urban and rural areas and regions is becoming increasingly obvious, which affects China’s economic development and social harmony and militates against the goal of common prosperity. Improving the income level of poor areas and addressing the gap between the rich and the poor is an inevitable choice to achieve common prosperity [
2].
The Yangtze River Economic Belt covers the provinces of Shanghai, Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Anhui, Jiangxi, Hubei, Hunan, Chongqing, Sichuan, Yunnan, and Guizhou. In 2020, the total population of this region was about 610 million, and its GDP was about 47 trillion yuan, accounting for more than 40% of the total in China. As one of the country’s three major development strategies, the CPC’s Central Committee, with President Xi Jinping at its core, has made major plans for the development of the Yangtze Economic Belt on many occasions. On 15 November 2020, President Xi Jinping presided over the Symposium on the Development of the Yangtze River Economic Belt, stressing that the Yangtze River Economic Belt will become the main battlefield of China’s ecological priority and green development, will smoothen the arteries of the domestic and international double circulation, and lead high-quality economic development [
3]. Compared with the other regions, the Yangtze River Economic Belt has prominent advantages in economic development, reform and innovation, and ecological improvement. However, economic development is still a big difference [
4]. The allocation of educational resources is unbalanced [
5] and scientific competitiveness is developing disproportionately [
6]. Contradictions between the economy, resources, and the environment [
7] and unbalanced and inadequate development are prominent problems. Arguably, narrowing the regional differences is the only way to promote the high-quality development of the region and the basic premise of achieving common prosperity. Therefore, the measurement and characterization of the degree and characteristics of common prosperity along the Yangtze River Economic Belt will provide theoretical guidance and policy suggestions for promoting high-quality regional development and achieving common prosperity in an all-round approach.
As China enters the new era, the principal social contradiction and actual development situation are also changing. From a macro perspective, the unbalanced development between regions and urban and rural areas is increasingly hindering economic growth. Microscopically, the generation of the income gap between regional residents is closely related to the primary distribution and redistribution, and common prosperity has Chinese characteristics to solve the current income inequality and regional disparities in China’s road and the fundamental policy, then how to define regional common prosperity? How to measure the development level of common prosperity in a certain region? This is the problem to be solved in this paper. Therefore, the purpose of this study includes two aspects. The first is to measure and characterize the degree of common prosperity and its regular characteristics along the Yangtze River Economic Belt and quantify common prosperity to provide new research directions. The second is to provide theoretical guidance and policy recommendations for promoting high-quality development in the region and moving towards common prosperity in an all-round way.
The rest of the study is arranged as follows:
Section 2 is a review of the relevant literature at home and abroad, including the evolution and development of common prosperity and its practical implications;
Section 3 introduces the research area and research methods;
Section 4 analyzes the empirical results;
Section 5 discusses and summarizes the study.
3. Regional Common Wealth Evaluation Index System
3.1. Survey Region
As an important economic belt of China’s “Belt and Road” strategy, the Yangtze River Economic Belt is one of the regions with the strongest comprehensive strength and the most important strategic support role [
3].
Figure 1 shows it spans three major regions in the east, middle, and western parts of China, covering 11 provinces and cities in Shanghai, Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Anhui, Jiangxi, Hunan, Hubei, Chongqing, Sichuan, Guizhou, and Yunnan. This is shown in
Figure 1. Due to its unique geographical location, important ecological environment, and huge development potential, the Yangtze River Economic Belt occupies a pivotal position in China’s economic landscape. Promoting the coordinated development of the Yangtze River Economic Belt region is of great significance in solving the problem of unbalanced and inadequate regional development with the view to achieve common prosperity in the region.
3.2. Measurement Index
Common prosperity is the essential requirement of socialism and the greatest superiority of socialism. Common wealth is shared wealth among all people; comprehensive wealth and gradual wealth. The former reflects the level of economic and social development, while the latter reflects the process of fair sharing of development opportunities and fruits by all people. In terms of content, the essence of common prosperity is to meet the growing needs of the people for a better life in all aspects. Common prosperity should meet the people’s needs for a good material and spiritual life. This is consistent with General Secretary Jinping Xi when he said that common prosperity is the affluence of both the material and spiritual life of the people [
35]. Common prosperity should also meet people’s needs for good basic public services and a good livable living environment. Based on the existing research, this article proposes four dimensional indicators for evaluating regional common prosperity: material life affluence, social life affluence, spiritual life affluence, and livable ecological environment.
Affluent material life reflects the regional economic development level, residents’ income and consumption gap, and the degree to which the regional economic development level satisfies the people’s good material needs. Among them, the ratio of per capital GDP and the added value of the tertiary industry to GDP represent the level of regional economic development. The ratio of research and experimental development (R&D) expenditure to GDP and the urbanization rate represent the regional scientific and technological strength and urbanization level. On the other hand, the consumer price index, Engel ss coefficient, and urban and rural residents’ disposable income difference indicate the regional residents’ consumption quality and income gap.
Harmonious social life reflects the stable and harmonious situation of social life in the region, such as inclusive and equal social security, sufficient employment, adequate housing, and a convenient transport system. It reflects the degree to which regional social development meets the needs of the people for good basic public services. Among them are the basic pension insurance participation rate, the number of beds in medical institutions per 1000 permanent residents, the basic medical insurance coverage rate, and the number of health technicians per 1000 permanent residents. These measures indicate that regional social security benefits are inclusive. Level of equality, urban registered unemployment rate, per capital housing area of urban and rural residents, the number of family cars per 100 households in urban areas, and the number of family cars per 100 households in rural areas represent indicators such as regional employment status, living conditions, and traffic convenience.
Prosperity in spiritual life reflects the level of people’s shared public cultural services and spiritual achievement. This reflects the contribution level of regional cultural resources to meeting people’s spiritual needs and enriching people’s spiritual life. Among them are the proportion of education expenditure in general public budget expenditure and the proportion of urban and rural residents’ education. Culture and entertainment expenditure represent regional education investment, residents’ education, culture and entertainment consumption level, the number of teachers per 1000 resident population, and the number of college students per 1000 resident population.
The livable ecological environment reflects the level of human settlements and ecological livability such as regional ecological protection and environmental governance. It also reflects the satisfaction of regional environmental governance and protection for the people’s needs for a beautiful ecological environment. Among them are the green coverage rate of built-up areas, per capital park green space, and forest coverage rate. All the indicators show the degree of regional ecological protection and ecological balance. The sewage treatment rate and the harmless treatment rate of domestic waste indicate the level of regional sewage and domestic waste treatment. The specific index content and index nature are shown in
Table 1.
3.3. The Data Source
The data on the indicators of economic prosperity and social harmony involved in this article are mainly from the provincial statistical yearbooks of 11 provinces and cities from 2010 to 2019. The number of pension insurance participants and the number of medical insurance participants are from the 2010–2019 China Labor Statistics Yearbook. The index data of education, science, culture, health, and ecological civilization mainly come from the 2010–2019 China Statistical Yearbook, and the sewage treatment rate index data come from the 2010–2019 China Urban Construction Statistical Yearbook and the provincial statistical yearbooks from 11 provinces and cities. At the same time, the author calculated the specific indicators involved in the calculation of common prosperity from the original data.
3.4. Research Methods
The TOPSIS method is a sorting technique that approximates the ideal solution, and sorts by detecting the closeness of the evaluation object to the optimal solution and the worst solution [
32]. It can effectively solve the multi-objective decision-making problem and facilitate each evaluation objects’ horizontal and vertical comparative analysis [
36]. When determining the index weight, the entropy weight method is usually used to calculate weight. Dariusz Kacprzak, specializing in multicriteria decision-making methods for ordered fuzzy data, mentioned that the TOPSIS method allows better differentiation of alternatives than the classical simple summation weighting (SAW) method, and that in practical decision problems, most multi-objective decision models use only subjective weights defined by the decision maker. When reliable subjective weights are not available, objective weights become useful when reliable subjective weights are not available, and one of the ways to obtain objective weights is to apply the concept of entropy [
37]. Dariusz Kacprzak also extended the TOPSIS method to group decision-making, where the algorithm first determines the weights of the decision makers and then calculates the aggregated decision matrix of all group decision matrices provided by the decision-makers [
38].
3.4.1. Build a Standardized Decision Matrix
Assuming that for
m evaluation areas and
n evaluation indicators, a data matrix of order
m ×
n is formed
. For the 2010 data, the initial matrix is an evaluation matrix of order 11 × 25. The evaluation index includes cost type and benefit type. The linear dimensionless method is used to obtain the dimensionless matrix.
3.4.2. Calculate the Weights of Indicators for Each Year
When the degree of variation of the JTH index is greater, its entropy value
is smaller, the greater the role of the index in the evaluation of the common wealth index, the greater the corresponding weight. Taking 2019 as an example, the weights of each indicator of the common wealth index of the regions along the Yangtze River Economic Belt are calculated, as shown in
Table 2.
The entropy value of each indicator:
Redundancy of each indicator:
Weight of each indicator:
3.4.3. Determine the Optimal Solution and the Worst Solution
Find the negative solution:
3.4.4. Calculate the Relative Closeness of Each Region to the Positive and Negative Ideal Solutions
The distance between the evaluated area and the positive ideal solution:
The distance between the evaluated area and the negative ideal solution:
The relative closeness of the evaluated area to the ideal solution:
The value of
is between 0 and 1. The larger
is, the higher the common wealth level of the evaluated area. Each evaluated area is statically sorted according to the value of
, and the area with a larger value of
is ranked higher. According to the above steps, the common wealth index and ranking results of each province and city are obtained after calculation by software R, as shown in
Table 3.
5. Conclusions
Focusing on regional common prosperity measurement, this article constructs a regional common prosperity evaluation index system along the Yangtze River Economic Belt in terms of the dimensions of material affluence, social life harmony, spiritual affluence, and ecological environment livability. The entropy weighting method was applied to determine the index weights, and the TOPSIS method was used for comprehensive ranking. Based on the research of domestic and foreign scholars and the experimental results of this paper, the evaluation system constructed in this study is reasonable and meaningful.
The results show that the level of common prosperity in the regions along the Yangtze River Economic Belt had an upward trend during 2010–2019 and showed prominent regional characteristics of high in the east and low in the west, with the level of common prosperity in the downstream region much higher than the level in the middle and upper reaches. That is to say, the downstream regions of the Long Economic Belt, which have innate advantages such as talents and well-developed coastal transportation and industrial basis, lead the development in all aspects and enjoy a relatively higher degree of common prosperity. On the other hand, the results of this study further prove that the “prosperity” in “common prosperity” involves all aspects of social development and people’s life, not only material income, but also the improvement of population quality, the enrichment of cultural life, the harmonious development of human and natural environment, and the coordinated development of renewable resources’ utilization and industrial upgrading.
From the composition dimension, each region has obvious structural differences in the level of common prosperity. Based on the evaluation results, the regions are classified into high-level common prosperity regions, uneven common prosperity regions, and low-level common prosperity regions. Accordingly, this article proposes the following recommendations.
Improve the income distribution system. First of all, always adhere to the basic distribution system of multiple distribution methods mainly based on the distribution of labor; secondly, the initial distribution and redistribution systems should be complementary, harmonious, and reasonable, while achieving efficiency and fairness. For Jiangxi, Yunnan, Guizhou, and Sichuan, where the income level is relatively backward in economic development, adequate social security should be given to low-income people while stabilizing the proportion of middle-income groups; for Shanghai, Zhejiang, and Jiangsu, provinces with leading and rapid development, publicity can be increased for the third distribution, which is based on the principle of voluntariness and led by individuals or enterprises, and thus in economically developed and relatively wealthy. In this way, regions with advanced economies and relatively concentrated wealth can create a more relaxed institutional environment conducive to the development of philanthropy and the creation of public welfare funds and encourage local affluent people and owners of large enterprises to devote themselves to social welfare.
Strengthen the mechanism of regional industrial synergy and cooperation and lead the region to common prosperity in material life with high-quality economic development. Optimize regional resource allocation, especially strengthening the proper flow of talents and technical resources to the middle and upper reaches of the region. Similarly optimize regional industrial layout, rationalize industrial transfer channels, and improve regional collaborative innovation capacity. It is important to continuously promote high-quality regional industrial development, narrow the gap and unevenness of regional economic development, and then drive regional people to achieve common prosperity in material life.
Deepen the sharing of regional livelihood infrastructure and basic public services to consolidate the basic conditions for social harmony and spiritual enrichment. Increase infrastructure investment in education, pension, and healthcare in Guizhou, Chongqing, Yunnan, and Jiangxi. In addition, empower regional basic public services to co-build and share with digital reform, continuously improve regional public service equalization, and boost regional social harmony and spiritual enrichment.
Strengthen the ability of collaborative regional environmental management and enhance the livability of the ecological environment. Strengthen ecological environmental protection and increase forest coverage in Shanghai, Jiangsu, Anhui, Sichuan, and other provinces and cities. In addition, increase the area of park green space in Yunnan, Guizhou, Hunan, Jiangxi, and other provinces. Continuously promote the coordination of economic development and ecological environment, rational use of natural resources under the premise of ecological protection, and industrial projects in line with regional characteristics [
39]. In the same vein, improve regional ecological and environmental governance education, ecological governance information disclosure, and diversified ecological compensation system, among others, to improve regional environmental collaborative governance capacity and create a high-quality ecological and livable environment [
40].