An analysis of disparities in regional economic growth in China and its factor decomposition using prefecture level data
For many years, regional development and disparities issues have been important concerns for both academic and political leaders. This paper analyzes the disparities in variation of regional economies in China over 1999 to 2004 period, using prefecture level data. Firstly, disparities in economic growth of each prefecture level city are analyzed by classifying them into several growth patterns in terms of GDP and GDP per capita. Accordingly, combining both GDP and GDP per capita growth patterns, each prefecture city is classified into five integrated growth patterns: (1) large, usually with higher level of GDP per capita, and dynamic (LD), (2) small but very dynamic (SD), (3) large with higher level of GDP but relatively slower growth (LHS), (4) small, usually with lower level of GDP per capita, and lagging (SLL), and (5) small in total GDP but with higher level of GDP per capita, and lagging (SHL). Generally, good-performing cities (of LD and SD type) are concentrated in the eastern parts of China whereas slow-growing cites such as those of SLL type are, to a greater extent, distributed in middle and western parts of China. It is also found that there is a tendency of intercity disparity on economic growth within eastern regions. Moreover, to better understand the role of regions in national growth and explore the factors of uneven economic growth of regions in China, changes in GDP share of cities in total are decomposed by using modified OECD/SIU approach. The first thing is to decompose GDP share of cities into GDP share of cities in the province they belong to and that of the province in the nation. Statistics show that most of the good-performing cities are primarily driven by their own success rather than the success of the province they belong to. Then GDP (for secondary sector) are decomposed into five factors: capital productivity, capital per manpower, specialization, employment rate and growth rate of population. We conclude that capital is a major factor that led to GDP (secondary sector)growth among cities in China. In most cities, capital productivity is declining, the extent of which contributes to the disparities among different types of cities, while capital per manpower has generally great positive impact on economic growth of cities at all levels. In addition, the tendency of decrease in specialization indicates that there is a change in specialization towards sectors with technology and capital-intensive industries which have relatively low employment Therefore, labor has less impact on GDP growth of the secondary sectors than capital.
NETL
NSTL
万方数据
维普
