Research On The Difference Of Factor's Agglomeration Of Regional Economic Growth In China

The difference in economic growth and economic development among regions of mainland China is always the focus of the theory research. Especially in recent years, Chinese government and all the circles of the society have been very much concerned about the increasing differences of economic development between the eastern, central and western regions in that the differences among regions has been becoming more and more serious.In earlier researches, regional economic growth were mostly based on the neoclassical economic growth theory, and gave the reasons of regional differences from the change of capital input, the endowment of human resources, the effect of industrial structure, the influence of locations and the impact of governmental policies and institutions. Most researchers think that the regional disparity results from the factor endowment, and the regional growth gap might be eliminated if the factor endowment difference is eliminated or reduced. But since the reform and opening, the conditional convergence has never appeared in China, especially among the eastern, central and western regions. The polarization phenomenon becomes more obvious. It's not persuasive to exclude the spatial factors from the neoclassical growth theory in the face of the non-equilibrium growth of economy in China. Under this circumstance, this study aims to introduce the element of spatial agglomeration of factors into the framework of regional economic growth and does the theoretical analysis and empirical research from a new perspective.By reviewing the theory of regional economic development, this thesis elaborates on the theory of factor's agglomeration systematically and analyzes its forming mechanism to reveal the intern-mechanism with which factor's agglomeration promotes the regional economic development.Based on the calculation and analysis of macroeconomic data, this thesis proves that the disparity among the eastern, central and western regions is increasingly and continually expanding. Firstly, the statistical indexes are used to state clearly that the differences among areas are becoming bigger and bigger; Secondly, Theil sub-index and the coefficient of variation reflect that the differences among regions are becoming higher and higher, and the differences among provinces are going down; Thirdly, the factors are very different in distribution and utilization in different regions, which certifies the regional difference of factors in different regions.According to the definition of factor's agglomeration, the thesis calculates the agglomeration level of capital, labor, technology and institution respectively. Considering the technology factor and institution factor consisting of several indexes, the Principal Component Analysis approach is used in the thesis to make it as the comprehensive index respectively for technology factor and institution factor. On the basis of the calculation of agglomeration of above four factors, the thesis sums them up to one factor's agglomeration index including the four factors. And the calculation shows that the level of the factor's agglomeration improves year by year and keeps being at a faster speed of agglomeration. But the regional differences are still very big, especially in the eastern region, where the agglomeration level is twice as much as that in the central and western regions. Before 2000, the agglomeration level in the central region was higher than that in the western region. But after 2000, the agglomeration in the western developped rapidly, and exceeded the level of the central, because of the western exploitation strategy.To find out the internal relationship between the factor's agglomeration and the regional economic growth, the thesis makes systematical researches on the relevance of the factor's agglomeration and the regional economic growth from the general relation of regional factor's agglomeration and economic growth, the economic growth effect of regional factor's agglomeration, and the factor's agglomeration effect of regional economic growth. Through the empirical researches, there comes the conclusion that the factor's agglomeration is one of the important factors that affect the regional economic growth, but in the meantime its impact on regional economic growth in the eastern, central and western regions is different.The thesis analyzes the disparity reasons of factor's agglomeration from the policies, institutions and regional basis, and with the practical data, verifies the important influence that policies and institutions have on regional economic growth.From the theoretical researches and empirical analysis, some conclusions can be drawn as follows:1. The disparity among the eastern, central and western regions is increasing gradually, but the disparity among the provinces within respective regions is decreasing continually.2. The regional factor's agglomeration is very different. As far as the agglomeration of capital, labor, technology, institution and the comprehensive agglomeration are concerned; the agglomeration in eastern region is much bigger than the central and western regions.3. The factor's agglomeration is an important factor affecting the regional economic growth. The impact of factor's agglomeration is different in different areas. In general, the contribution of factor's agglomeration in advanced regions is certainly bigger than that in backward regions. In China, the contribution of factor's agglomeration in eastern region is bigger than that in central and western regions, and the same is the central region to that in western region.4. The regional factor's agglomeration is strongly relevant to the economic growth. On one hand, factor's agglomeration promotes the regional economic growth; on the other hand, regional economic growth brings about more factor's agglomeration. With the effect of agglomeration economy, the production efficiency in advanced regions is higher and the speed of economic growth is faster, thus attracting more factors from backward regions coming, and strengthen the factor's agglomeration.5. The differences of factor's agglomeration always comply with the differences of regional economic growth, so the reasons for the differences of factor's agglomeration are the same as the reasons for the differences of regional economic growth. The thesis analyzes the reasons of regional disparity in China from the aspects of policy-making, institutions and regional basis.According to the above, the thesis puts forward some suggestions from the policies, institutions and regional mutual actions.