Spatiotemporal Pattern of Urban-Rural Income Gap of Prefecture Level Cities or Above in China

Taking the residents income ratio between urban and rural residents as the measuring indicator,this paper analyses the spatiotemporal pattern,global trends,spatial heterogeneities and correlations of income gap of 343prefecture-level cities or above in China from 2000 to 2011 by use of ESDA-GIS,semi-variant function,gravity center migration and trend surface analysis. Spatial lag model is established to estimate the effect of each explanatory variable and analyze the impact factors of urban-rural income gap. The results show as following. The spatial difference of income gap between urban and rural residents is significantly, showing a trend of the middle Chinathe western Chinathe eastern China,and the Centralthe Souththe North. The calculate result of Moran's I shows that the density of urbanrural income gap of prefecture level cities or above in China has a significant and growing global spatial autocorrelation characteristic and spatial cluster,regional disparities trend of income gap is more and more obvious. The gravity center of urban-rural income gap had moved northeast on the whole from 2000 to 2011. The western and northeastern areas are the significantly reduced area in urban-rural income ratio,while the Yellow River basin is the most concentrated areas where the income gap significantly expanded. Cold spot areas of urban- rural income gap have spread markedly,and the spot areas shrink dramatically. Urban- rural human capital inputs ratio,agglomeration of the secondary and tertiary sectors,urbanization rate and spatial lag variable all have positive effects on urban- rural income gap,whereas the urban- rural labor ratio has negative effect on urban-rural income gap.