The impact of informatization on the urban-rural income gap: An empirical investigation of China

Informatization has changed people's production and lifestyle through the application of information technology, which provides a breakthrough point for solving the urban-rural income gap problem. This paper uses panel data of 30 provinces in China from 2011 to 2020 to measure the level of information technology development in each province of China using the entropy-weighted TOPSIS method and empirically tests the impact and mechanism of the level of information technology on the urban-rural income gap through a panel effects model. It is found that: the level of informatization significantly reduces the urban-rural income gap, and the results still hold after robustness tests; the level of informatization may indirectly affect the urban-rural income gap through technological progress; there is significant regional heterogeneity in the level of informatization development on the urban-rural income gap, with the degree of influence showing a decreasing trend from the eastern coast to the western inland.