The Convergence Of Regional Economic Growth And The Test Of Knowledge Spillovers Effect In China

With the deepening of China's reform and opening up and the establishment of socialist market economy, our country's economy is developing towards the direction of internationalization. We can say that the Economy Reform in our country achieve remarkable success. But, behind the success, there are many hidden problems which must be solved in time. One of the most serious problems is the Imbalance of regional economic development. The imbalance has hindered the further development of our country's economy and the enhancement of our country's comprehensive national strength seriously. Applying the content of “ economic convergence ” in western economic theory to measure the imbalance of our country's regional economic development,analysing the factors which influence the balanced regional economy development of our country from the view of “economic convergence” and how can coordinate these factors to promote the coordinated development of regional economy. All these issues have become the hotspot of our country's macro economy research.This dissertation is based on the research of regional economic convergence. First of all, I apply traditional measure methods of economic convergence( ?- convergence test? absolute?- convergence test?conditional ?- convergence test) to our country's regional economic growth without account of knowledge spillovers effect. The test results show that there exist weaker economic convergence state among our country's regions between 1978 to 2012.Subsequently, I elaborate the knowledge spillovers theory in current western economic theory systematically and detailedly, then apply it to our country, analyze the present knowledge spillover situation between regions in our country. Next, from the change of gross production growth rate,through the change of knowledge spillovers between regions, to the change of gross production growth rate with account of knowledge spillovers effect, I construct three kinds of gross production growth rate model with account of knowledge spillover effect according to different hypotheses and carry out empirical research on our country. At last, I use variance decomposition technique(VDT) to make knowledge spillovers and economic convergence merged together organically, utilize the real economic data between 1978 to 2012 to carry out empirical research on our country from the view of “Factor Decomposition Analysis” and “Time Series Analysis”separately. The test results show that compared with other factors which influence economic convergence, knowledge spillover only make minor secondary effect, i.e. there are obvious obstacles to knowledge spillovers between regions in our country. The analysis methods used in the process of empirical test include: ?- convergence test? ?- convergence test ?spatial econometric analysis ?econometric analysis of panel data model ?time series analysis and factor decomposition analysis. The details of this paper are as follows:Chapter 1 is the introduction part. At first, introducing the background?significance?research methods?the basic concepts of knowledge spillover and economic convergence, and the researchstatus of this field domestically and abroad; the unique and possible innovations of this paper. The structure arrangement and research framework are presented. at last.Chapter 2 is the analysis of present situation of our country's regional economic development. The main analysis in this chapter are the regional economic development policies carried out after the funding of People's Republic of China and currently.Chapter 3 is the measure of economic convergence of our country, and as the basis of next study. The next studies on knowledge spillovers and on the influence of knowledge spillovers on economic convergence are all based on this. In this part, I measure the economic convergence of our country by methods of ?- convergence test ? absolute ?- convergence test ?conditional ?- convergence test ? ?- convergence test with account of spatial effect. The conclusions are different.Chapter 4 is the elaboration of knowledge spillovers theory and as the basis of next research.The basic theories on knowledge spillovers mainly include knowledge spillovers from one side and knowledge spillovers from each other. But, all the theories consider the factors which influence the degree of knowledge spillovers between regions can be concluded three aspects: one is knowledge receiver, the second is knowledge releaser, the third is the communication of receiver and releaser.Chapter 5 is the analysis of knowledge spillovers of our country, as the empirical study of last chapter- “The basic theory of knowledge spillovers” and as the basis of next study-“The influence of knowledge spillovers on economic convergence of our country”. In this chapter, I test the existence of inter-regional knowledge spillovers in our country firstly. The specific test methods include graph test and Moran's I test. The results of these tests agree that there exist inter-regional knowledge spillovers in our country. In the case of the existence of inter-regional knowledge spillovers, I calculate the concrete data of inter-regional knowledge spillovers in our country secondly. The process of calculating include the index structure from Verspagen(1991)and Canel(2001), the application of software SAS9.0, and validity test on data. Subsequently, I apply“Descriptive statistics analysis” and “Panel data analysis” to the data. In this chapter, I also apply Econometric analysis of panel data model to the influence of knowledge spillovers on knowledge production as the deeper analysis of the inter-regional knowledge spillovers in our country.Chapter 6 is the analysis of the influence of the knowledge spillovers on gross production growth rate of our country, as a transition of this dissertation's core content-“The analysis of the influence of knowledge spillovers on economic convergence in our country”. In this chapter, I transit from the course of simple gross production growth rate change through the course of inter-regional knowledge spillovers change to the course of gross production growth rate change with account of knowledge spillovers. Then, through structuring three kinds of gross production growth rate model with account of knowledge spillovers, I apply Econometric analysis of panel data model to test the influence of the inter-regional knowledge spillovers on gross production growth rate empirically. The test result show that the influence of inter-regional knowledge spillovers on gross production growth rate is very low which also reveals that there are obstacles during the process of knowledge spillovers between regions in our country. This conclusion is also a main interpretation for unbalanced regional economic development?big economic gap between backward region and developed region?and the slow economic growth rate of backward region.Chapter 7 is the last part of this dissertation. It is the analysis of the influence ofinter-regional knowledge spillovers on economic convergence. It can be said that the analysis of this chapter is the post-analysis of chapter 6. I transit from the three kinds of gross production growth rate change model with account of knowledge spillovers through variance decomposition to the issue of “economic convergence” and solve the mergence problem of knowledge spillovers which take individual region as research object and economic convergence which take all regions as research object. From the two perspectives of " Factor Decomposition Analysis " and "Time Series Analysis", I test the influence of inter-regional knowledge spillovers on economic convergence of our country. Specifically speaking, Factor Decomposition Analysis put more emphasis on the degree of the influence of knowledge spillovers on economic convergence, but Time Series Analysis put more emphasis on the course of the influence of knowledge spillovers on economic convergence. The analysis results show that compared with other factors, the influence of inter-regional knowledge spillovers on economic convergence of our country from 1978 to2012 is very low. It is not the main factor, It is secondary factor. The main factors of economic convergence in our country from 1978 to 2012 are as follows: 1?the independent research and development of new knowledge in one region 2?the input growth rate of labor in one region 3?the input growth rate of capital in one region.