Abstract: Narrowing the gap between urban and rural people is crucial to achieving common prosperity.This paper proposes that the key to understand income disparity is the liberalization of rights,which fall into three categories,namely economic activity rights,property rights and basic social rights.Based on the theory of open access order,we establish a conceptual framework on rights liberalization and income disparities,and apply it to China’s reform process.The structural transformation in the past 40 years is divided into five stages,for each stage,we analyse the institutional background,the features of rights liberalization,and their impact on urban and rural residents’ income.We argue that the fundamental causes of urban-rural income disparity are the differences between open access orders.Specifically,to achieve common prosperity,it is necessary to empower the city rights of migrant workers,and strengthen the open access order in rural areas.