R／S AND WAVELET ANALYSIS ON EVOLUTIONARY PROCESS OF REGIONAL ECONOMIC DISPARITY IN CHINA DURING PAST 50 YEARS

1INTRODUCTIONThere have been many literatures about the regional disparity of economic development in China since the late 1970s. Some scholars argue that disparity of re-gional development in China has been expanded since 1978, but others find it has reduced since 1978. The findings of some scholars show that the evolutionary process of the disparity of regional economic develop-ment in China follows the inverted U shape, but some others do not think so. What is the true tendency, and i…     

SPATIAL-TEMPORAL ANALYSIS OF REGIONAL DISPARITIES OF INTERNET DEVELOPMENT IN CHINA

This paper attempts to summarize the disparities of lnternet development in China spatially-temporally. The major objective is to measure the differences between Eastern, Central and Western China. Methods of map presentation, correlation, Lorenz curve, Gini Coefficient and location quotient analysis are conductcd in this study.For convenience, the indicator of regional lnternet development is simplified as the number of domain names registered under .CN in each province. The data used are collected from the semi-annual surveys of the Statistical surrey Report on the Internet Development in China since 1999. There are several findings: 1)The number of domain names in each province (city) declines gradually from the east to the west. 2) The gap between the highest growth provinces (cities) and the lowest ones is rather large. 3) Although the absolute differences between the eastern, ccntral and western China have been enlarged, the relative diffcrences in each province (city) have remained constant.4) Provinces (cities) are classified into three types according to location quotient changes, namely, rising type,changeless type and declining type. Compared with industrial and economic growth, lnternet sector in the eastern and western China is relatively ascending, while that in the central China is descending. 5) The number of domain names at provincial level is not statistically consistent with GDP.     

Creative industries agglomeration,regional innovation and productivity growth in China

This paper falls into the broad area of economic geography and economics of creativity,and it presents an alternative approach to explain why total factor productivity(TFP)growth is different across China′s regions.It establishes an empirical model to estimate the spatial agglomeration effects of creative industries on regional TFP growth,using China′s provincial panel data during the period of 2003 to 2010.We found that the creative industries agglomeration(CIA)has significant and positive impact on regional TFP growth.The result also implies that the CIA can facilitate regional TFP growth through promoting regional innovation instead of improving regional efficiency.Therefore,we argue that policy makers should take some measures to retain and establish more creative zones.     

INDUSTRIAL LINKAGES AND RURAL INDUSTRIALIZATION: A CASE STUDY OF HENAN PROVINCE, CHINA

The fast growth of rural industry in China has generated regional development of large rural areas. What role does industrial linkages play in Chinese rural industrialization? This is a same question as the relation between industrial linkages and regional development which has been discussed for decades and no final conclusion reached. The paper pursues the discussion and focuses on rural areas in China with special reference to Henan Province. On the basis of data from an investigation on nearly 200 industrial enterprises, this study emphasizes that the linkages play a very important role in spreading development of industry in rural areas. It is recommended that the national policies should prompt industrial linkages to upgrade the technological level of rural industry and to integrate rural industry with urban industry.     

ESTUARINE AND COASTAL CHALLENGES IN CHINA

Estuaries and coasts axe conjunctions of four spheres (atmosphere, lithosphere, hydrosphere and biosphere) and important matter and energy convergence/divergence zones, where devel-oped economy, dense population and highly intensive exploitation induce adverse environmental changes and serious destruction of resources, which have great impacts on coastal sustainable development, espe-cially as the highly intensive development in river basins has direct and pronounced effects on estuaries and their adjacent coasts. In the new century, China‘s estuaries and coast are faced with four main chal-lenges : sharp decrease of sediment discharge into the sea, rapid increase of pollution matter into the sea, loss of coastal wetland, and the impacts of global sea level rise on the coastal lowlands of China. There-fore, it is undoubtedly very important and urgent to carry out studies on estuarine and coastal environmen-tal changes, in order to resolve the issue of national sustainable development, especially that of rational use of coastal zone resources.     

SPATIAL-TEMPORAL CHANGES AND TRENDS OF AGEING IN CHINA

This study focuses on the development stages of ageing and its regional differences in China based on examination of official statistics and documents. The development of ageing in China has experienced three major stages. Firstly, in the 1950s, low coefficient of elderly population （over 65 years） paced up to primary adult type. Secondly, there was a deeply drop of the elderly population because of natural disaster and political factors in the 1960s. Thirdly, from the 1970s to the end of 20th century, the constant increasing of elderly coefficient made China close to elderly society. With statistic data of population, Logistic model is used to simulate the future development of ageing, and two characteristics of development of ageing are presented. Firstly, as for ageing from 2005 to 2050, the elderly coefficient will grow up significantly from 8.48% to 16.30%. Secondly, after 2025, the increasing rate of elderly coefficient will slow down gradually. The regional differences of elderly population in China can be summarized as follows： 1） the eastern China possesses higher elderly coefficient and huger elder population than the western China; 2） about 47.4% of municipalities and provinces in the eastern China become elderly especially Shanghai, Zhejiang Province, Jiangsu Province, Beijing, Tianjin and Shandong Province; 3） ageing intensity is higher in rural area than urban area but getting close each other, and there are more elderly people in rural area than in urban area. Therefore, these will arose aged care problems, and it becomes important issue to establish the social security system in rural areas as soon as possible for elderly people.     

Spatial Pattern and Influencing Factors of Regional Ecological Civilisation Construction in China

Ecological civilisation construction is a strategy for regional sustainable development based on a regional system of human-land relations. The comprehensive measurement and regional differentiation in construction levels are the key issues of ecological civilisation construction. This study aims to build 35 index systems that coalesce on four aspects: ecological economic adjustment and operation, ecological and social development and progress, ecological resources and environmental security, and ecological institutional and cultural awareness. We measured and evaluated the level of ecological civilisation construction of 329 cities(prefecture-level cities, autonomous prefectures and leagues) in 2018 using a comprehensive evaluation system and a spatial autocorrelation method to assess spatial differences in the level of ecological civilisation construction across China. This approach takes ‘the humanities-economic geography' comprehensive perspective and uses a GWR(geographically weighted regression) model to analyse 10 influencing factors. Results show that: 1) the level of ecological construction can be divided into five types: higher, high, medium, low, and lower levels, according to the evaluation score. The five types are spindle-shaped in quantity and there is a significant imbalance in their spatial distribution, mainly trending from the southeast coast to the northwest. The land is decreasing, and the southern region is higher in level than the northern region. 2) The results of the spatial autocorrelation method show obvious spatial differences in ecological civilisation construction across China and that the level of ecological civilisation construction is positively autocorrelated. From east to west, the hot zone gradually transitions to a cold zone. A high-high type is mainly distributed in eastern coastal cities of China, and the number of high-low and low-high types are small. The low-low type is mainly distributed in the northwestern and northeastern regions. 3) The effect of influencing factors is heterogeneous in their spatial distribution, and the abundance of ecological resources is the most influential factor. According to the main influencing factors, each region should adhere to the principle of differentiation according to local conditions when choosing its ecological civilisation construction path and establishing an assessment mechanism. This study provides a scientific basis for enriching the regional level measurement of ecological civilisation construction, clarifying the current level of ecological civilisation construction in China, and implementing the regional differentiation path of ecological civilisation construction.     

A SIMULTANEOUS APPROACH TO WATER—RESOURCE PROTECTION AND ECONOMIC STRUCTURAL ADJUSTMENT —A Case Study of Guanzhong Region in the Huanghe River Basin,China

A regional multiple-objective water-resource and economic optimization model was developed using a quantitative method of systematic analysis.Input to the model includes indexes of economic structure and development,water-resource utilization,wastewater and pollutant discharge,and investment in wastewater treatment.The model,which consists of producton-structure and industrial-structure optimization modules,was applied to the Guanzhong region in the middle reaches of the Huanghe(Yellow) River basin in China.By evaluating several alternative production and industrialization schemes,the modal indicate that water pollution will get worsen though wastewater treatment improves if the economy continues to develop at the planned speed without structural adjustment.However,the results also show that not only economic goals but also water-resource protection and pollution-control targets can be achieved under an alternative,recommended production and industrial structure.This example illustrates that economic development and environmental protection can be improved coordinately by the regional multiple-objective water-resource and economic optimization model.It provides an operable approach to the simultaneous sustained development of water resources and economic growth.     

Understanding Relationship Between Accessibility and Economic Growth:A Case Study from China(1990–2010)

China′s economy and transport infrastructure have both experienced rapid development since 1978, and especially since 1990. Today, China is the second-largest economic entity in terms of GDP and has the largest high-speed rail(HSR) network and the second-largest expressway network in the world. This paper explores the relationship between accessibility and economic growth in China from 1990 to 2010. In the study, the basic research units include 333 prefecture-level cities and four municipalities. We explore a bivariate analysis framework of accessibility and economic growth, and their increase rates, to examine this relationship using long-term panel data. The results indicate that, first, accessibility and economic growth show a significant positive relationship using both cross-section and panel data, while the increase rate in accessibility and GDP indicate no significant relationship using cross-section data and a poor significant relationship using panel data. Second, the distributions of local advantage are uneven. Cities with low local advantage with respect to accessibility and GDP are mainly located in China′s eastern coastal region or the provincial capitals, while those with low local advantage in terms of their increase rates are located in the western region. Third, as China′s economic growth and transport networks have evolved, the distribution of local advantage shows little change in terms of accessibility and GDP, but a greater change in terms of their increase rates, which is largely influenced by the distribution of expressway and HSR networks.     

Regional Clustering and Synchronization of Provincial Business Fluctuations in China

In this article, we propose a novel, multilevel, dynamic factor model, to determine endogenously clustered regions for the investigation of regional clustering and synchronization of provincial business fluctuations in China. The parameter identification and model estimation was conducted using the Markov Chain Monte Carlo method. We then conducted an empirical study of the provincial business fluctuations in China(31 Chinese provinces are considered except Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan due to the data unavailability), which were sampled from January 2000 to December 2015. Our results indicated that these provinces could be clustered into four regions: leading, coincident, lagging, and overshooting. In comparison with traditional geographical divisions, this novel clustering into four regions enabled the regional business cycle synchronization to be more accurately captured. Within the four regional clusters it was possible to identify substantial heterogeneities among regional business cycle fluctuations, especially during the periods of the 2008 financial crisis and the ‘four-trillion economic stimulus plan'.     

Spatiotemporal Dynamics of Green Total-factor Water-use Efficiency and Its Influencing Factors in China

In this study, we developed an evaluation index system for green total-factor water-use efficiency(GTFWUE) which reflected both economic and green efficiencies of water resource utilization. Then we measured the GTFWUE of 30 provinces/municipalities/autonomous regions(hereafter provinces) in China(not including Tibet, Hong Kong, Macao, Taiwan as no data) from 2000 to 2018 using a minimum distance to the strong frontier model that contained an undesirable output. We further analyzed the regional differences and spatial correlations of GTFWUE using these values based on Global and Local Moran's I statistics, and empirically determined the factors affecting GTFWUE using a spatial econometric model. The evaluation results revealed that the GTFWUE differed substantially between the regions. The provinces with high and low GTFWUE values were located in the coastal and inland areas of China, respectively. The eastern region had a significantly higher GTFWUE than the central and western regions. The GTFWUEs for all three regions(eastern, central, and western regions) decreased slowly from 2000 to 2011(except 2005), remained stable from 2012 to 2016, and rapidly increased in 2017 before decreasing again in 2018. We found significant spatial correlations between the provincial GTFWUEs. The GTFWUE for most provinces belonged to the high-high or low-low cluster region, revealing a significant spatial clustering effect of provincial GTFWUEs. We also found that China's GTFWUE was highly promoted by economic growth,population size, opening-up level, and urbanization level, and was evidently hindered by water endowment, technological progress, and government influence. However, the water-use structure had little impact on GTFWUE. This study fully demonstrated that the water use mode would be improved, and water resources needed to be used more efficiently and green in China. Moreover, based on the findings of this study, several policy recommendations were proposed from the aspects of cross-regional cooperation, economy, society, and institution.     

Regional disparity and convergence of China’s inbound tourism economy

Comprehending regional characteristics and influencing factors of China’s inbound tourism economy is important to make effective policies that will help inbound tourism develop harmoniously and shrink regional disparity. This paper studied the regional disparity and convergence of China’s inbound tourism economy during 1996–2008 with the methods of σ-convergence, club convergence and β-convergence. The results indicate that 1) inbound tourism receipts per capita (ITRPC) of the whole country, the eastern, central and western regions presented the rapid increasing trend; 2) ITRPC of the whole country was characterized by convergence; 3) the eastern region presented club convergence, but the central and western regions did not show this trend; 4) the star-hotel levels and investment in fixed assets for the tourism industry per capita had a same trend to growth rates of ITRPC, promoting inbound tourism development, and there was no difference among the 31 provinces (municipalities) in the mainland of China; 5) but the proportion of employed persons in the tourism industry accounting for total population and the proportion of the tertiary industry accounting for GDP had a reversal trend to growth rates of ITRPC, shrinking the provincial disparity in inbound tourism economy, and there were differences between the developed provinces and the developing provinces. Based on these analyses, we put forward some suggestions for the developing provinces to speed up inbound tourism economy.     

中国区域经济发展的地区差异GIS分析

本文主要针对我国改革开放以来地区间经济发展的差距究竟是扩大(发散)还是缩小(收敛)的问题开展了研究.首先,对全国各省(市)1980 - 2008年的人均名义GDP数据进行了空间自相关分析,探讨了全国区域经济发展的地区差异变化,揭示了1984年以后中国各地区之间的经济发展的正空间自相关关系,即全国区域经济发展差异在整体上...     

Basic characteristics, spatial disparity and its major influencing factors of service industry in China

Based on the analysis of its basic characteristics, this article investigated the disparities of Chinese service industry among the three regions (the eastern China, the western China and the middle China) and inter-provincial disparities of that in the three regions by Theil coefficient and cluster analysis. Then, major factors influencing its spatial disparity were explored by correlation analysis and regression analysis. The conclusions could be drawn as follows. 1) The development of Chinese service industry experienced three phases since the 1980s: rapid growth period, slow growth period, and recovery period. From the proportion of value-added and employment, its development was obviously on the low level. From the composition of industrial structure, traditional service sectors were dominant, but modern service sectors were lagged. Moreover, its spatial disparity was distinct. 2) The level of Chinese service industry was divided into five basic regional ranks: well-developed, developed, relatively-developed, underdeveloped and undeveloped regions. As a whole, the overall structure of spatial disparity was steady in 1990–2005. But there was notable gradient disparity in the interior structure of service industry among different provinces. Furthermore, the overall disparity expanded rapidly in 1990–2005. The inter-provincial disparity of service industry in the three regions, especially in the eastern China, was bigger than the disparity among the three regions. And 3) the level of economic development, the level of urban development, the scale of market capacity, the level of transportation and telecommunication, and the abundance of human resources were major factors influencing the development of Chinese service industry.     

Regional Innovation System: Theoretical Approach and Empirical Study of China

1INTRODUCTIONCOOKEetal.(1996)conductedadetailedsurveyontheconceptsofregionalinnovationsystem(RIS)aftertherevolutionarystudyofFREEMAN(1987)andLUNDVALL(1992)onthenationalinnovationsys-tem.COOKEpointedoutthatRISisagroupofgeo-graphicallyadjacententerprises,R&Dinstitutesanduniversities,whichsupportsandproducesinnovation.WIIGandWOOD(1999)arguedthatthebroadsenseofRISshouldalsoincludethelocalgovernmentsandlocalservicessuchasfinancialbusinessinstitutes.BasedonthereviewofRISconcept…     

Regional difference in social capital and its impact on regional economic growth in China

Social capital has played an increasingly important role in regional development. China is a country with high stocks of social capital. Using several different indicators of social capital, this study tries to research the regional disparities in social capital and the influence of social capital on economic growth of China in 1978–2004. Measuring social capital with indicators of associations, charities and blood donation rates, this study finds significant regional disparities in social capital at provincial level in China. Those indicators for social capital are highly correlated with regional economic performance. Statistical analysis shows that social capital has a significant and positive effect on a long-term provincial economic growth. This relationship exists after controlling policy, macro location factors, and per capita GDP in the initial year. The empirical findings indicate that institutions, culture and social relations are critical for regional development in China. Therefore, the creation and support of social capital should be paid more attention to when making regional policy.     

THE PRESENT SITUATION,TYPES AND CHANGES OF CHINA'S ENVIRONMENT

1INTRODUCTION~ntially,environmentalproblemisaneconomicproblem.Atpresent,variousenvironmentalpoblernswhichmanarebeingconfrontedisadirectandindirectman-effectedrestilt.Meanwhile,environmentalproblemsareclOSelyrelatedto~ialproblems,eSpeciallyrapidgr'OwthofPOpulation(on,1994).So,whenenvironmentalproblemsforoneregionareanalyzed,itisnec~toconsiderits~ialandeconomicdevelOPmentlevel.2~Y~2.IbeaveralBasicconceptions2.1.1Environmentalcomprehensioni~(ECI)ECIexpressesthechangeOftotalenvironment…     

Effects of the Northeast China Revitalization Strategy on Regional Economic Growth and Social Development

Measuring the economic and social effects of the Northeast China Revitalization Strategy is critical to addressing regional sustainable development in China. To shed light on this issue, an integrated perspective was adopted that is combined with the difference-in-differences method to measure the effects of the strategy on economic growth and social development in Northeast China. The findings suggest that the strategy has significantly improved regional economic growth and per-capita income by increasing its gross domestic product(GDP) and GDP per capita by 25.70% and 46.00%, respectively. However, the strategy has significantly worsened the regional employment in the secondary industry of the region. In addition, the strategy has not significantly improved regional infrastructural road, education investment or social security, and has had no significant effect on mitigating regional disparity. In addition, the policy effects are highly heterogeneous across cities based on city size and characteristics. Therefore, there is no simple answer regarding whether the Northeast China Revitalization Strategy has reached its original goals from an integrated perspective. The next phase of the strategy should emphasize improving research and development(RD) and human capital investments based on urban heterogeneity to prevent conservative path-dependency and the lock-in of outdated technologies.