Three essays on regional development and urban growth in China

This dissertation provides empirical evidence on regional development and urban growth in China. In the first chapter, we examine how Chinese cities of different sizes grow relative to each other and find that reform period since 1980 delivered significant structural change in Chinese urban system. The city size distribution remains stable before the reform but shows convergent pattern of growth in post-reform period. Secondly, we use Pearson goodness-of-fit test to examine which distribution is the best approximation of city size distribution. A parallel study of city size distribution in China and U.S. reveals substantial differences: a lognormal distribution in case of China and a Pareto distribution in case of U.S.; The second chapter examines the patterns and determinants of city growth in China. We find that the city income distribution converges during the period 1990 to 1999. The geographic distribution of the Chinese urban system is uneven, and the welfare of coastal cities is significantly higher than that of inland cities. An analysis of the determinants of city growth shows that economic reform and openness of cities play important roles in accelerating urban growth. The results also lead support to the significant impact of other factors on urban growth, such as geography, industrial structure and human capital accumulation.; The third chapter provides empirical evidence on the linkage between regional inequality, industrial agglomeration and foreign trade. The results indicate that the increasing regional inequality in the 1990s was accompanied by the increasing regional specialization and manufacturing industry agglomeration. Access to foreign trade and foreign investment is one of important driving forces of unbalanced geographic distribution of production in China. Industries dependent on foreign trade and foreign direct investment are more likely to locate in the regions with easy access to foreign market, and exporting industries have a higher degree of agglomeration.