By Jia Shen, Department of Development Strategy and Regional Economy, DRC

Research Report, No.175, 2020 (Total 5919) 2020-7-8

Abstract: In recent years, as China’s economic growth rate has been slowing down and its economic structure shifting, the country’s regional development gap has become wider to some extent. But the gap of China’s per capita disposal income has narrowed among regions, mainly because of the rapid progress that late-coming regions has made in urbanization. While China’s overall per capita income gap has been narrowed, the gap of its citizens’ non-salary income, especially their asset income, is increasingly widened among regions. Compared with cities, rural residents’ disposable income, especially their wages and salaries, has seen relatively higher regional differences. Therefore, it is necessary to promote coordinated growth of residents’ income, focusing on ensuring steady share of salary income to optimize the structure of residents’ income and create more and better jobs. The central and western regions need to be given more support for exploring new approaches to industrial development and tapping into the potential of urbanization. And a sound, effective fiscal transfer payment system and an adjusting mechanism for asset income need to be established and improved.

Keywords: disposable income, regional differences, coordinated development