A Study on Farmers' Income Structure and Urban-rural Income Gap in China——An Empirical Analysis Based on PVAR Model

The farmers' income structure can be divided into four categories,including wage income,operating income,transfer income and property income by the National Bureau of Statistics of China. Base on the PVAR model and provinces' panel data in China from 2000 to 2012,this paper analyzes the dynamic relationships between farmers' income structure and the urban-rural income gap. The results find that the different sources of farmers income influence the urban-rural income gap to different degrees and in different directions. The transfer income is the major cause for the changes in the urban-rural income gap,which indicates that the welfare gap between urban and rural residents has seriously restricted the increase of farmers' income. Farmers' wage income proves the most detrimental to narrowing urban-rural income gap. Both the operating income and the property income have played an important role in narrowing the income gap. Moreover,the expanding of urbanrural income gap is the least helpful for the increase of farmers' transfer income.