The impact of rural infrastructural investment on farmers' income growth in China

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to propose and verify the influence mechanism of various kinds of infrastructure investment on farmers' income in rural China. It further analyzes the effect of rural infrastructure investment on rural economic transformation.

Design/methodology/approach

This research is used to GMM model to verify the relationship between infrastructure investment and farmers' income; furthermore, the mediating effect model is used to verify the linear conduction mechanism, and panel threshold model is used to verify the nonlinear conduction mechanism.

Findings

The results show that: (1) Rural infrastructure investment can indirectly affect farmers' income by changing land efficiency and land use structure; (2) The impact of infrastructure investment on farmers' income is nonlinear; (3) Increasing infrastructural investment of productivity and transportation will contribute to accelerating the transformation of rural economy.

Originality/value

This paper expands the research on the impact of rural infrastructure investment on farmers' income; it analyzes the inner mechanism and enriches the research contents in this field; the influence of various infrastructure investment on rural economic transformation is further discussed; it provides policy suggestions and theoretical basis for accelerating the transformation of China's rural economy.

Citation

Wang, L., Zhang, F., Wang, Z. and Tan, Q. (2022), "The impact of rural infrastructural investment on farmers' income growth in China", China Agricultural Economic Review, Vol. 14 No. 1, pp. 202-219. https://doi.org/10.1108/CAER-09-2020-0211