ABSTRACT
Infrastructure affects rural development through many channels such as improved agricultural productivity, increased rural non-farm employment, and rural migration into urban sectors. However, the role of infrastructure in rural development has not been paid enough attention in the literature. One of the thornier problems in analyzing the role of rural infrastructure is the lack of reliable data on various infrastructure indicators. By using newly available detailed data on rural infrastructure from the Agricultural Census combined with data from other official sources, this paper evaluates the current situation of infrastructure and analyzes its role in agriculture and non-farm economies in rural China. We use a traditional source accounting approach to identify the specific role of rural infrastructure and other public capital in explaining productivity difference among regions, shedding new lights on how to allocate limited public resources for both growth and regional equity purposes.
