IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/enepol/v177y2023ics0301421523001490.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The role of power transmission infrastructure in income inequality: Fresh evidence from China

Author

Listed:
  • Huang, Ruting
  • Yao, Xin

Abstract

Power infrastructure plays a critical role in poverty and economic growth, but its distributional effects remain actively debated, especially in developing countries. This paper empirically examines the effects of power transmission infrastructure on income inequality in China. We find that power transmission infrastructure has a significant income distribution effect. This paper also analyzes its impact mechanism and suggests that the distributional effects mainly work through improving agricultural productivity and rural residents' income. With further research, the empirical results show that the fruit of power transmission infrastructure development is unevenly distributed within different groups, and the income inequality within urban and rural sectors has become even worse. The distributional effects also differ across regions, and the power-importing areas benefit more than exporting regions. These findings suggest insightful references for developing countries’ power infrastructure planning and construction strategy.

Suggested Citation

  • Huang, Ruting & Yao, Xin, 2023. "The role of power transmission infrastructure in income inequality: Fresh evidence from China," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 177(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:enepol:v:177:y:2023:i:c:s0301421523001490
    DOI: 10.1016/j.enpol.2023.113564
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0301421523001490
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.enpol.2023.113564?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Bridge, Brandon A. & Adhikari, Dadhi & Fontenla, Matías, 2016. "Household-level effects of electricity on income," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 58(C), pages 222-228.
    2. César Calderón & Alberto Chong, 2004. "Volume and Quality of Infrastructure and the Distribution of Income: An Empirical Investigation," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 50(1), pages 87-106, March.
    3. Fujii, Tomoki & Shonchoy, Abu S. & Xu, Sijia, 2018. "Impact of Electrification on Children’s Nutritional Status in Rural Bangladesh," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 102(C), pages 315-330.
    4. Thomas Piketty & Li Yang & Gabriel Zucman, 2019. "Capital Accumulation, Private Property, and Rising Inequality in China, 1978–2015," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 109(7), pages 2469-2496, July.
    5. Wei, Shang-Jin & Wu, Yi, 2001. "Globalization and Inequality: Evidence from within China," CEPR Discussion Papers 3088, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    6. Dave Donaldson, 2018. "Railroads of the Raj: Estimating the Impact of Transportation Infrastructure," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 108(4-5), pages 899-934, April.
    7. Charles R. Hulten, 1996. "Infrastructure Capital and Economic Growth: How Well You Use It May Be More Important Than How Much You Have," NBER Working Papers 5847, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    8. Schreiner, Lena & Madlener, Reinhard, 2022. "Investing in power grid infrastructure as a flexibility option: A DSGE assessment for Germany," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 107(C).
    9. Alwyn Young, 2013. "Inequality, the Urban-Rural Gap, and Migration," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 128(4), pages 1727-1785.
    10. Lee, Jongchul, 2013. "A provincial perspective on income inequality in urban China and the role of property and business income," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 26(C), pages 140-150.
    11. Daron Acemoglu & David Autor & Jonathon Hazell & Pascual Restrepo, 2022. "Artificial Intelligence and Jobs: Evidence from Online Vacancies," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 40(S1), pages 293-340.
    12. Wang, Xiang & Shao, Shuai & Li, Ling, 2019. "Agricultural inputs, urbanization, and urban-rural income disparity: Evidence from China," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 55(C), pages 67-84.
    13. Shahidur R. Khandker, Hussain A. Samad, Rubaba Ali, and Douglas F. Barnes, 2014. "Who Benefits Most from Rural Electrification? Evidence in India," The Energy Journal, International Association for Energy Economics, vol. 0(Number 2).
    14. Taryn Dinkelman, 2011. "The Effects of Rural Electrification on Employment: New Evidence from South Africa," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 101(7), pages 3078-3108, December.
    15. Daron Acemoglu & Pascual Restrepo, 2019. "Automation and New Tasks: How Technology Displaces and Reinstates Labor," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 33(2), pages 3-30, Spring.
    16. Fisher-Vanden, Karen & Mansur, Erin T. & Wang, Qiong (Juliana), 2015. "Electricity shortages and firm productivity: Evidence from China's industrial firms," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 114(C), pages 172-188.
    17. Kanbur, Ravi & Wang, Yue & Zhang, Xiaobo, 2021. "The great Chinese inequality turnaround," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 49(2), pages 467-482.
    18. Lewis, Joshua & Severnini, Edson, 2020. "Short- and long-run impacts of rural electrification: Evidence from the historical rollout of the U.S. power grid," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 143(C).
    19. Lenz, Luciane & Munyehirwe, Anicet & Peters, Jörg & Sievert, Maximiliane, 2017. "Does Large-Scale Infrastructure Investment Alleviate Poverty? Impacts of Rwanda’s Electricity Access Roll-Out Program," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 89(C), pages 88-110.
    20. Molly Lipscomb & A. Mushfiq Mobarak & Tania Barham, 2013. "Development Effects of Electrification: Evidence from the Topographic Placement of Hydropower Plants in Brazil," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 5(2), pages 200-231, April.
    21. Banerjee, Abhijit & Duflo, Esther & Qian, Nancy, 2020. "On the road: Access to transportation infrastructure and economic growth in China," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 145(C).
    22. Lin, Boqiang & Wu, Wei, 2017. "Cost of long distance electricity transmission in China," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 109(C), pages 132-140.
    23. Jiekuan Zhang & Yan Zhang, 2021. "The relationship between China's income inequality and transport infrastructure, economic growth, and carbon emissions," Growth and Change, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 52(1), pages 243-264, March.
    24. Schreiner, Lena & Madlener, Reinhard, 2021. "A pathway to green growth? Macroeconomic impacts of power grid infrastructure investments in Germany," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 156(C).
    25. Molero-Simarro, Ricardo, 2017. "Inequality in China revisited. The effect of functional distribution of income on urban top incomes, the urban-rural gap and the Gini index, 1978–2015," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 42(C), pages 101-117.
    26. Li, Jinjing & Wang, Xinmei & Xu, Jing & Yuan, Chang, 2020. "The role of public pensions in income inequality among elderly households in China 1988–2013," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 61(C).
    27. He, Xiaoping, 2022. "Energy effect of urban diversity: An empirical study from a land-use perspective," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 108(C).
    28. Grogan, Louise & Sadanand, Asha, 2013. "Rural Electrification and Employment in Poor Countries: Evidence from Nicaragua," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 43(C), pages 252-265.
    29. Xu, Zhen & Das, Debasish Kumar & Guo, Wei & Wei, Wendong, 2021. "Does power grid infrastructure stimulate regional economic growth?," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 155(C).
    30. Santosh Kumar & Ganesh Rauniyar, 2018. "The impact of rural electrification on income and education: Evidence from Bhutan," Review of Development Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 22(3), pages 1146-1165, August.
    31. Ni, Niannian & Liu, Yulin, 2019. "Financial liberalization and income inequality: A meta-analysis based on cross-country studies," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 56(C), pages 1-1.
    32. Luo, Chuliang & Li, Shi & Sicular, Terry, 2020. "The long-term evolution of national income inequality and rural poverty in China," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 62(C).
    33. Ding, Haoyuan & Qin, Cong & Shi, Kang, 2018. "Development through electrification: Evidence from rural China," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 50(C), pages 313-328.
    34. Medeiros, Victor & Ribeiro, Rafael Saulo Marques, 2020. "Power infrastructure and income inequality: Evidence from Brazilian state-level data using dynamic panel data models," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 146(C).
    35. Chen, Binkai & Liu, Dan & Lu, Ming, 2018. "City size, migration and urban inequality in China," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 51(C), pages 42-58.
    36. Jalil, Abdul, 2012. "Modeling income inequality and openness in the framework of Kuznets curve: New evidence from China," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 29(2), pages 309-315.
    37. Lindy C. Charlery & Matin Qaim & Carsten Smith-Hall, 2016. "Impact of infrastructure on rural household income and inequality in Nepal," Journal of Development Effectiveness, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 8(2), pages 266-286, June.
    38. Yao, Xin & Huang, Ruting & Du, Kerui, 2019. "The impacts of market power on power grid efficiency: Evidence from China," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 55(C), pages 99-110.
    39. Chatterjee, Santanu & Turnovsky, Stephen J., 2012. "Infrastructure and inequality," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 56(8), pages 1730-1745.
    40. Anthony Shorrocks & Guanghua Wan, 2005. "Spatial decomposition of inequality," Journal of Economic Geography, Oxford University Press, vol. 5(1), pages 59-81, January.
    41. Shahidur R. Khandker, Douglas F. Barnes, and Hussain A. Samad, 2012. "The Welfare Impacts of Rural Electrification in Bangladesh," The Energy Journal, International Association for Energy Economics, vol. 0(Number 1).
    42. James Bessen, 2019. "Automation and jobs: when technology boosts employment," Economic Policy, CEPR, CESifo, Sciences Po;CES;MSH, vol. 34(100), pages 589-626.
    43. Xiao, Han & Zheng, Xinye & Xie, Lunyu, 2022. "Promoting pro-poor growth through infrastructure investment: Evidence from the Targeted Poverty Alleviation program in China," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 71(C).
    44. Dulani Seneviratne & Ms. Yan M Sun, 2013. "Infrastructure and Income Distribution in ASEAN-5: What are the Links?," IMF Working Papers 2013/041, International Monetary Fund.
    45. Wendong Wei & Jiashuo Li & Bin Chen & Meng Wang & Pengfei Zhang & Dabo Guan & Jing Meng & Haoqi Qian & Yaohua Cheng & Chongqing Kang & Kuishuang Feng & Qing Yang & Ning Zhang & Xi Liang & Jinjun Xue, 2021. "Embodied greenhouse gas emissions from building China’s large-scale power transmission infrastructure," Nature Sustainability, Nature, vol. 4(8), pages 739-747, August.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Li, Kuanhong & Wang, Linping & Wang, Lianhui, 2024. "Consumption as the catalyst: Analyzing rural power infrastructure and agricultural growth through panel threshold regression and data-driven prediction," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 365(C).
    2. Zhang, Chongchong & Cai, Xiangyu & Lin, Boqiang, 2023. "The low-carbon transition of China's power sector: Scale effect of grid upgrading," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 285(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Li, Kuanhong & Wang, Linping & Wang, Lianhui, 2024. "Consumption as the catalyst: Analyzing rural power infrastructure and agricultural growth through panel threshold regression and data-driven prediction," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 365(C).
    2. Wan, Guanghua & Wang, Chen & Zhang, Xun & Zuo, Congming, 2024. "Income inequality effect of public utility infrastructure: Evidence from rural China," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 179(C).
    3. Enrico Nano, 2022. "Electrifying Nigeria: the Impact of Rural Access to Electricity on Kids' Schooling," IHEID Working Papers 03-2022, Economics Section, The Graduate Institute of International Studies.
    4. Obsa Urgessa Ayana & Jima Degaga, 2022. "Effects of rural electrification on household welfare: a meta-regression analysis," International Review of Economics, Springer;Happiness Economics and Interpersonal Relations (HEIRS), vol. 69(2), pages 209-261, June.
    5. Richard S. J. Tol, 2023. "Navigating the energy trilemma during geopolitical and environmental crises," Papers 2301.07671, arXiv.org.
    6. Fujii, Tomoki & Shonchoy, Abu S., 2020. "Fertility and rural electrification in Bangladesh," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 143(C).
    7. Jose Cuesta & Mario Negre & Ana Revenga & Maika Schmidt, 2018. "Tackling Income Inequality: What Works and Why?," Journal of Income Distribution, Ad libros publications inc., vol. 26(1), pages 1-48, March.
    8. Bensch, Gunther & Gotz, Gunnar & Peters, Jörg, 2020. "Effects of rural electrification on employment: A comment on Dinkelman (2011)," Ruhr Economic Papers 840, RWI - Leibniz-Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung, Ruhr-University Bochum, TU Dortmund University, University of Duisburg-Essen.
    9. Santosh Kumar & Ganesh Rauniyar, 2018. "The impact of rural electrification on income and education: Evidence from Bhutan," Review of Development Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 22(3), pages 1146-1165, August.
    10. Gupta, Ridhima & Pelli, Martino, 2021. "Electrification and cooking fuel choice in rural India," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 146(C).
    11. Kenneth Lee & Edward Miguel & Catherine Wolfram, 2020. "Does Household Electrification Supercharge Economic Development?," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 34(1), pages 122-144, Winter.
    12. Holstenkamp, Lars, 2019. "What do we know about cooperative sustainable electrification in the global South? A synthesis of the literature and refined social-ecological systems framework," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 109(C), pages 307-320.
    13. Priya Manwaring & Tanner Regan, 2023. "Public Disclosure and Tax Compliance: Evidence from Uganda," CSAE Working Paper Series 2023-05, Centre for the Study of African Economies, University of Oxford.
    14. Calderon, Cesar & Serven, Luis, 2014. "Infrastructure, growth, and inequality : an overview," Policy Research Working Paper Series 7034, The World Bank.
    15. Simone Tagliapietra & Giovanni Occhiali & Enrico Nano & Robert Kalcik, 2020. "The impact of electrification on labour market outcomes in Nigeria," Economia Politica: Journal of Analytical and Institutional Economics, Springer;Fondazione Edison, vol. 37(3), pages 737-779, October.
    16. Alice Tianbo Zhang & Sasmita Patnaik & Shaily Jha & Shalu Agrawal & Carlos F. Gould & Johannes Urpelainen, 2022. "Evidence of multidimensional gender inequality in energy services from a large-scale household survey in India," Nature Energy, Nature, vol. 7(8), pages 698-707, August.
    17. Zhenxiong Huang & Hangtian Xu & Jianming Li & Nengsheng Luo, 2020. "Has highway construction narrowed the urban–rural income gap? Evidence from Chinese cities," Papers in Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 99(3), pages 705-723, June.
    18. Xiao, Han & Zheng, Xinye & Xie, Lunyu, 2022. "Promoting pro-poor growth through infrastructure investment: Evidence from the Targeted Poverty Alleviation program in China," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 71(C).
    19. Pradhan Shrestha, Rosy & Jirakiattikul, Sopin & Lohani, Sunil Prasad & Shrestha, Mandip, 2023. "Perceived impact of electricity on productive end use and its reality: Transition from electricity to income for rural Nepalese women," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 183(C).
    20. Ujjayant Chakravorty & Ridhima Gupta & Martino Pelli, 2022. "The economics of rural energy use in developing countries," CIRANO Working Papers 2022s-12, CIRANO.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:enepol:v:177:y:2023:i:c:s0301421523001490. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/enpol .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.