Search Results (62)

Common prosperity serves as a pivotal condition for achieving sustainable development by fostering social equity, bolstering economic resilience, and promoting environmental stewardship. Differential land revenue, as a crucial form of property based on spatial resource occupation, significantly contributes to the achievement of common prosperity, though empirical evidence of its impact is limited. This study explores the potential influence of land utilization revenue disparity on common prosperity from the perspective of urban macro differential rent (UMDR). Utilizing panel data from 280 Chinese cities spanning 2007 to 2020, we discover that UMDR and common prosperity levels exhibit strikingly similar spatiotemporal evolution. Further empirical analysis shows that UMDR significantly raises urban common prosperity levels, with a 0.217 standard unit increase in common prosperity for every 1 standard unit rise in UMDR. This boost stems from enhanced urban prosperity and the sharing of development achievements, encompassing economic growth, improved public services, enhanced ecological civilization, and more equitable distribution of development gains between urban and rural areas and among individuals. Additionally, we observe that UMDR has a more pronounced effect on common prosperity in eastern cities and those with a predominant service industry. This study enhances the comprehension of the relationship between urban land revenue disparities, prosperity, and equitable sharing, presenting a new perspective for the administration to contemplate the utilization of land-based policy tools in pursuit of the common prosperity goal and ultimately achieve sustainable development. Full article

Promoting coordinated urban–rural development represents a key policy initiative by the Chinese government to advance rural revitalization and promote common prosperity. As a central component of China’s land management system, the Urban–Rural Construction Land Linkage Policy aims at dismantling the historical urban–rural division while fostering balanced regional growth. This research analyzes panel data spanning 2010–2022 across 294 prefecture-level cities, utilizing a multi-phase difference-in-differences (DID) approach to evaluate the policy’s effectiveness in reducing urban–rural income disparities. Empirical findings reveal that the policy implementation has substantially narrowed the income gap between urban and rural populations. Heterogeneity analysis indicates that the policy’s impact is more pronounced in China’s eastern regions. Mechanism analysis reveals that the policy narrows the income gap through two primary pathways: first, by promoting urbanization through facilitating rural-to-urban population transfer and optimizing urban spatial layout. Second, by driving industrial structure optimization through intensive land use that advances agricultural scale and modernization, while improved land resource allocation boosts secondary and tertiary industries. These findings offer empirical support and policy insights for refining urban–rural land management strategies and advancing integrated development. Full article

Low-carbon transformation and common prosperity are critical pillars of China’s economic growth. To explore the mechanism relating the two, this paper analyzes how carbon efficiency influences the urban–rural income gap, including its transmission mechanism and heterogeneity, and uses panel data from 240 Chinese prefectural cities (2006–2019). The results reveal an “inverted U-shaped” relationship between the low-carbon transition and urban–rural income gap. Specifically, as the carbon emission efficiency improves, the impact of the low-carbon transition on the urban–rural income gap changes from positive to negative. This finding remains robust under robustness tests. The heterogeneity test indicates that the “inverted U-shaped” relationship exhibits regional heterogeneity, resource endowment heterogeneity, economic development stage heterogeneity, and urban–rural income gap level heterogeneity. Furthermore, urban low-carbon transition influences the urban–rural income gap through industrial structure, employment structure, and human capital. This paper discusses the combination of low-carbon transformation and common prosperity, and takes into account both ecological sustainability and social sustainability. The findings of this paper offer policy proposals for advancing the achievement of dual-carbon goals and common prosperity, and provide references for developing countries. Full article

To further promote rural revitalization strategies and achieve common prosperity, it is necessary to clarify the relationships among public expenditure for agriculture, agricultural green total factor productivity (AGTFP), and the urban–rural income gap (URIG). On the basis of panel data for 30 provincial regions in China from 2012 to 2022, this study constructs a panel vector autoregression (PVAR) model and explores their mutual interaction and influence from both dynamic and static perspectives through the Granger causality test, impulse response analysis, and variance decomposition methods. The research results show that public expenditure on agriculture, AGTFP, and URIG exhibit significant self-reinforcing trends. There is a significant two-way interaction effect between public expenditure on agriculture and URIG, indicating that these factors promote and complement each other. In addition, both improving AGTFP and increasing public expenditure on agriculture can help narrow URIG, but the positive impact of AGTFP exhibits greater magnitude and sustainability. In conclusion, from a long-term perspective, to develop the rural economy and promote rural revitalization, it is necessary not only to increase public expenditure on agriculture continuously, but also to focus on enhancing AGTFP. Full article

Common prosperity is the fundamental driving force of rural revitalization, as well as the foundation for achieving sustainable economic development. The e-commerce to the countryside policy has energized the rural economy, helping to improve household economic resilience and reduce income stratification, thereby promoting the inclusive and sustainable development of the digital economy. Drawing on panel data collected from rural fixed observation points in Henan Province during 2009–2022, this study employs a staggered difference-in-differences (DID) approach to evaluate the impact of China’s e-commerce to the countryside policy on farmers’ income and income inequality. The empirical results reveal that the rural e-commerce policy significantly increases farmers’ income while mitigating income inequality. The underlying mechanisms function through three synergistic pathways: industrial structural upgrading, manifested through tri-sector integration driven by rural enterprise development; factor allocation restructuring, evidenced by productivity gains from optimized labor–capital reallocation; and enhanced market inclusion through digital technology empowerment that lowers participation barriers. Heterogeneity analysis indicates that the e-commerce to the countryside policy exhibits pro-poor characteristics, with its income-enhancing and equalizing effects being particularly pronounced in agricultural areas, traditional villages, county-level civilized villages, underdeveloped regions, registered poverty-stricken villages, and households with low human, physical, and financial capital endowments. These findings confirm the inclusive development efficacy of rural e-commerce among vulnerable populations. Consequently, the study provides a replicable policy implementation framework for achieving common prosperity objectives. Full article

Transportation infrastructure serves a pivotal role in driving regional development. This study proposes a decision-making framework for rural road network planning within the context of China’s common prosperity initiative. An integrated model combining Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) and the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) is developed, where DEA is employed to identify technically efficient planning alternatives and AHP is used to rank these alternatives based on social and environmental benefits. Applying the model to the case of Yueqing City, Zhejiang Province, the findings reveal that common prosperity-oriented schemes, particularly the Scheme, which emphasizes full industrial coverage and balanced equity, achieve a superior balance among construction costs, industrial coverage, regional equity, and carbon emissions. Theoretically, this research advances transportation planning by incorporating equity-focused metrics, such as the Gini coefficient, into efficiency analyses, thus promoting a socially sustainable approach to infrastructure development. Practically, the proposed method offers a systematic and actionable tool for local governments to optimize rural transportation networks in support of common prosperity and balanced regional growth. The resulting framework not only identifies technically efficient and equitable layouts but also offers planners a transparent tool for balancing cost, social equity, and environmental impact in future rural infrastructure projects. Full article

Digital inclusive financial services are an important external force driving the common prosperity of Chinese farmers, while the sustainable development of household livelihoods is an internal guarantee for their common prosperity. The synergistic interaction between internal and external factors is an inherent requirement for promoting the common prosperity of farmers. Based on survey data from 467 households in Zhejiang Province, China, this study incorporates a qualitative comparative analysis method into a sustainable livelihood framework, establishing five antecedent variables and conducting necessity and sufficiency analysis. It has been found that single-factor conditions are not necessary for the common prosperity of farmers. However, the combination of digital inclusive financial services, household livelihood strategies, modern agricultural development, and rural governance conditions can generate multiple equivalent pathways to promote the common prosperity of farmers. These pathways include the synergistic path between digital inclusive finance and the business-based livelihood strategy, the synergistic path of digital inclusive finance, modern agricultural development, and business-based livelihood strategies, and the synergistic path of digital inclusive finance and rural governance for business-based livelihood strategies. In addition, digital inclusive financial services are identified as the core condition influencing common prosperity among farmers, while livelihood capital serves as a supporting condition for promoting their common prosperity. Rural governance and modern agricultural conditions have a substitutive effect on the impact of digital inclusive finance on common prosperity. Full article

The digital economy, as a major economic form after the agricultural and industrial economies, has become a new driving force in the development of the national economy, and it may provide opportunities for rural economic development through new businesses such as the platform economy and live e-commerce. However, there may also be a risk of a digital divide, and the mechanism of its impact on shared prosperity needs to be scientifically verified. Based on the panel data of 2243 counties in China from 2011 to 2021, the article empirically examines how the digital economy promotes common prosperity among regions and the spatial spillover effects of the digital economy. The findings suggest that, first, the geographic distance matrix reveals a positive spatial relationship between the digital economy and shared prosperity, and the phenomenon of geo-graphic agglomeration is observed, which manifests itself as a high-high-low aggregation. Second, the digital economy has had an impact that transcends space, enabling counties to both “expand the cake” and “share the cake” more equitably. Third, the coordinated, inclusive, and structurally optimizing effects of the digital economy help counties achieve common prosperity by upgrading the level of public services and promoting the upgrading of industrial structure. Ultimately, the digital economy promotes the common prosperity and long-term development of county economies through innovation-driven and optimized resource allocation. Full article

The rapid advancement of digital communication and information technologies has significantly influenced rural household income and income inequality. Based on a sample of 2216 farmers from the China Family Panel Studies (CFPS), this analysis combines Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) regression with Conditional Mixed Process (CMP) estimation to account for endogeneity, evaluating how internet adoption affects both income diversification and inequality patterns among Chinese farmers. The findings reveal three key insights: First, internet use significantly increases farmers’ household income while reducing overall income inequality. Second, the positive impact of internet use on total income is primarily driven by increases in wage and operating income, while the reduction in income inequality is associated with a more equitable distribution of these income sources. Third, human capital plays a moderating role, with high-human-capital farmers benefiting more from internet use in terms of income growth and inequality reduction. Based on these findings, this study suggests that policymakers should promote internet adoption to enhance farmers’ incomes and address income inequality, while paying attention to the varying effects across different human capital groups. These insights provide valuable policy implications for achieving common prosperity in developing countries and regions. Full article

The common prosperity of rural inhabitants is a fundamental requirement of Chinese-style modernization, with the revitalization of rural industries offering new opportunities to achieve this goal. Utilizing panel data from 31 Chinese provinces (2012–2023), this study examines the impact and mechanisms of the revitalization of rural industries on rural inhabitants’ common prosperity. The results show that the revitalization of rural industries significantly promotes common prosperity among rural inhabitants, with this conclusion holding across various robustness tests. The revitalization of rural industries primarily advances common prosperity through enhancing labor productivity and driving agricultural technological innovation, representing efficiency and impetus transformations. The new rural collective economy positively moderates common prosperity via the efficiency path but moderates it negatively via the impetus path. The “efficient government–effective market” coupling coordination exhibits a positive threshold effect on the revitalization of rural industries’ impact on common prosperity, intensifying this positive effect as coordination deepens. Strategic recommendations include optimizing rural industry structures, enhancing collective economies, and strengthening government–market coupling to accelerate common prosperity. Full article

Addressing the urban–rural income disparity and fostering coordinated urban–rural development pose critical challenges for China in pursuit of its common prosperity strategy during its new phase of development. Regional integration emerges as a pivotal policy tool, which is extensively utilized to facilitate regional development coordination and significantly contributing to overall regional economic growth. This study delves into whether the implementation of regional integration policies generates a common prosperity effect, thereby reducing the disparity in income levels between urban and rural regions. Utilizing city-level panel data spanning from 2000 to 2019 within the Yangtze River Delta region, we treat the expansion of regional integration as a quasi-natural experiment and employ a time-varying Difference-in-Differences model to identify the integration’s common prosperity effect. Furthermore, we leverage mediation effect models to unravel the mechanisms through which integration influences the urban–rural divide in income. Our findings reveal that the expansion of integrated regions contributes to narrowing the urban–rural income gap with these results remaining robust across multiple tests. Urbanization and marketization are pivotal mechanisms driving the reduction in the urban–rural income disparity in integrated regions. Additionally, heterogeneity analysis uncovers significant spatial and temporal variations in the urban–rural income gap narrowing effect of integration expansion. Specifically, over time, the effect transitions from a significant negative impact to an insignificant positive one, while spatially, significant negative effects are observed in Jiangsu and Zhejiang provinces, contrasting with insignificant positive effects in Anhui province. This study offers fresh perspectives on the nexus between regional integration and the urban–rural income disparity, laying a scientific groundwork to evaluate the impacts of urban agglomeration integration and optimize policies aimed at fostering regional integration and coordinated urban–rural development. Full article

Achieving common prosperity and promoting coordinated regional development are key objectives of China’s economic and social development in the new era. The eastern, western, and northern regions of Guangdong (hereafter referred to as “the Regions”) possess abundant agricultural resources and serve as significant agricultural development zones within the province. A critical challenge for Guangdong’s high-quality development lies in how to enhance farmers’ income (FI) through agricultural industrial agglomeration (AIA), reduce economic disparities across regions, achieve coordinated regional development, and promote common prosperity. This study employs panel data from 12 prefecture-level cities in the Regions from 2012 to 2022 to examine the dynamic evolution of AIA and its impact on (FI). It focuses on the mechanisms through which industrial agglomeration influences income growth and explores the heterogeneity in its effects. The findings indicate that the impact of AIA on FI follows a stage-specific U-shaped pattern. Agricultural productivity mediates this relationship, demonstrating that industrial agglomeration enhances FI by improving production efficiency. However, the level of regional industrialization weakens the positive effect of AIA on income growth. To fully leverage the benefits of AIA in the Regions, this study recommends optimizing the spatial distribution of agricultural industries, integrating regional development advantages, advancing industrialization, improving rural infrastructure, and implementing region-specific policies. These measures aim to increase FI, narrow regional economic disparities in Guangdong, and achieve common prosperity. Full article

This research investigates the disparities, trends and spillovers of shared prosperity for all in China during the period of 2012–2021. Taking a representative region consisting of 18 urban and rural areas as a case study, using 10 indicators such as economic development, population density and education level, along with the spatial lag model, we explore the impact of social and economic factors on common prosperity as well as the associated spillovers. Results revealed that there existed huge regional disparities in common prosperity in the short term, namely the unbalanced level of prosperity across China’s mainland, while in the long term, the common prosperity level appears to be gradually enhanced with the convergence of income ratio lines. Meanwhile, common prosperity is spatially correlated with each other, with the spatial distribution features of high–high and low–low agglomerations. Based on the model analysis, there are mixed spillovers in the evolution of common prosperity: factors like education level and population density have positive spillovers while the rest of the factors have negative spillovers. To recap, population density and education level can significantly abridge the disparities in urban and rural areas. Full article

Promoting the sustainable development of agriculture is the basis of reducing the poverty rate, ensuring food security, and promoting common prosperity. In order to explore the impact of industrial capital and commercial capital on the sustainable development of agriculture, this paper starts from the perspective of agriculture and conducts empirical tests based on the panel data of 30 provinces in China (except Tibet) from 2013 to 2022, using the fixed-effect model and spatial spillover effect model. The results included the following: (1) industrial capital and commercial capital can significantly promote the sustainable development of agriculture, and this conclusion was still valid after endogenous test and robustness test; (2) a heterogeneity test showed that industrial capital and commercial capital has a stronger role in promoting the sustainable development of agriculture in non-major grain producing areas, areas with high marketization level and central and western regions; (3) the test of the transmission mechanism showed that industrial capital and commercial capital can promote the sustainable development of agriculture by optimizing agricultural production conditions, improving rural environment and promoting farmers’ poverty reduction and common prosperity; (4) further research showed that industrial and commercial capital has a positive spillover effect on the sustainable development of agriculture in neighboring areas while promoting the sustainable development of agriculture in this region. Based on the above conclusions, this paper puts forward some countermeasures and suggestions, such as improving rural infrastructure construction, strengthening efforts to guide industrial and commercial capital to the countryside, and paying attention to the differentiation of industrial and commercial capital investment development. Full article

Exploring the economic value of carbon sinks in agricultural systems can improve the development of sustainable agriculture. However, there are few studies on the economic value of farmland carbon sinks from a systemic perspective. This study takes Zhejiang, China’s first common wealth demonstration zone, as an example, and quantifies the carbon sinks in farmland and their economic value. The driving mechanism is analyzed by using a system dynamics model. The potential value and management of farmland carbon sinks are discussed. The results show that from 2007 to 2021, the average annual carbon sinks in farmland of Zhejiang were 5.84 million tons, a downward trend. The annual economic value was CNY 149.80 million, a marked upward trend. A rational fertilization project is a win-win ecological and economical measure to enhance the carbon sinks in farmland. Artificially increasing the carbon price to 32% will help Zhejiang achieve the core goal of the common prosperity plan, bringing the urban–rural income gap below 1.9 in 2025. Achieving the economic value of farmland carbon sinks is a green way to narrow the urban–rural income gap. Our study indicates that the marketization of carbon sinks in agricultural land systems may be a very promising path to promote green agriculture. Full article