Research On Regional Economic Convergence In China

With the implementation of Reform and Opening up policy for over 20 years, as the whole, China has created a miracle in world economic history, especially in the field of economic growth. However, the apparent disparity among provinces has emerged. Researches on the existence of provincial convergence in China play an important role in practice.Neoclassical growth theory raised the definition of convergence, which means that the growth rate of under developing regions is faster than that of the developed ones. Moreover, new growth theory revises the defeats of neoclassical growth theory and improves the estimated results of convergence through integrating the growth factors, such as human resource, R&D, learning ability, etc. This progress causes the research target to change from absolute convergence to conditional one. Meanwhile, the methods of practical analysis shift from the cross sector and time serial to Panel Data, data envelop analyze (DAE) and nonparametric functional estimation.This paper analyzed the provincial convergence in China since the reform and opening up, based on convergence conception which derived from the neoclassical growth theory and new growth theory. After accounting the data by variousmethods, we found that the credible results which can prove the existence of convergence haven't emerged. The path of China economic growth still diverges and the discrepancy of growth rate among the provinces becomes wider. The above complex consequence results from various factors. From the estimated result, we can still discover that factors such as human resource and institution have not played a remarkable role on China economy. Optimizing the economic growth patterns and implementing appropriate economic policies will generate a great impact on the sustainable economic growth.