Econometric Analysis of the Relationships among Economic Developments and Urban-Rural Income and Cultivated Land Quantity
耕地资源数量与经济发展和城乡收入关系的计量分析

The relationships among economic development, urban-rural income and cultivated land quantity are an important issue to ensure the sustainable social-economic development and the sustainable land resource utilization. Employing co-integration analysis and Granger causality test, this paper makes econometric analysis on the long equilibrium relation and Granger causality of economic development and urban-rural income with cultivated land quantity in the period from 1978 to 2004 in China. The result shows that firstly, the variables of cultivated land quantity, economic development and urban-rural income are all non-stationary time series. Secondly, a co-integration relation has been found between economic development and cultivated land quantity, and economic development is a unilateral Granger cause of cultivated land quantity, which indicates that the decline of cultivated land resource does not impose impact on economic development remarkably. Therefore, we can not draw the conclusion that it is the change of cultivated land resource quantity that promotes the economic development. Thirdly, the co-integration relation has also been found between urban available incomes per capita, rural net income per capita and cultivated land quantity, and accordingly urban available incomes per capita is a unilateral Granger cause of cultivated land quantity. However, there is no obvious Granger causality between rural net income per capita and cultivated land quantity. That is to say, the change of cultivated land resource can not be used to explain the improvement of rural and urban income statistically. Consequently, the above conclusions imply that it is somehow an illusion that the consumption of cultivated land resource can help to develop economy and improve social welfare. The reality, however, is opposite. This paper revises this well-spread judgment on the relationship between the quantity of cultivated land resource, economic development and rural-urban income, which may be helpful to improvement of economy and living condition relying on the cultivated land resource blindly. In order to protect cultivated land resource, some possible policy strategies are suggested, which including improving the quality of economic development and the level of land resource intensive utilization, promoting rural collective construction land transfer. All of our efforts are to clarify the complex relations between economy, income and cultivated land resource, and put forward some suggestions to protect land resource, develop economy and improve urban-rural income.