A Tentative Research On The Regional Difference Of Yunnan Social And Economic Development And On Its Counter-Measures

Regional gap as a common economic and social phenomenon has been on the list of the important issues that must be tackled in the21st century. It is also a factor for local governments to consider when adopting regional economic development policies. And researches on less-developed regions in China's west such as regional economic difference in Yunnan province will contribute to developing the western region and to the realization of a moderately well-off society.This dissertation, on the strength of existing research results and detailed data, makes a positive analysis of the regional structure of Yunnan's social economic development since 1978, its change and its impact on the whole economic function of the area.The first chapter comments on the theory and method applied to regional difference research, defining the scope of this research, and by borrowing relevant theories of regional development from regional economics and development economics, thesis put forth the index system and evaluating method of assessing the difference of Yunnan's social economic growth, thereby providing the theoretical framework for subsequent positive analysis.The second chapter is a positive analysis with the findings of the overall low level of economic development of Yunnan, regional imbalance and temporal instability.Chapter three makes a positive analysis of the degree of the realization of the first modernization in the region of Yunnan, finding that the process of modernization of this region is generally low, regionally imbalanced and structurally unstable.Chapter four evaluates the impacts of regional economic differences on society and economy, including the positive and negative ones.Chapter five analyzes the motivation mechanism of regional difference, citing natural geographical environment, human environment, history and economic policies as the main reasons.Chapter six discusses the proposals and counter-measures of coordinate development of society and economy such as tapping natural resources, infrastructure building, fostering market system, capital-raising ability, development of human resources, restructuring of existent economic structure, urbanization and alleviating poverty.The final chapter summarizes the thesis and points out its inadequacies. Specifically, this thesis has some originality in the application of theory and method; in practice, it providescertain proposals for policy-makers to refine Yunnan's regional economic structure to promote its overall development. The inadequacies are that this thesis is an involved research covering many subjects, regions and spanning a wide range of time, and that this is only a tentative research because of my limited knowledge of Yunnan coupled with the urgency of time. So some of the issues elaborated in thesis may be shallow and the conclusions drawn may be inconsistent with those of other scholars, and even there is the possibility of errors. All these are expected to be done in the future.