Study On The Spatio-temporal Evolvement Of Regional Economic Disparity In Gansu Province

Regional economic disparity has long been an interesting topic of academic research on regional economics and development economics and a general problem in every country. Gansu province locates in northwest of China, which economy development is very laggard and also faces the problem of regional economic disparity. So it is very important theoretical and practical significance to analyze the rule and reasons for spatio-temporal evolvement of economic disparity in Gansu province.Based on the analysis of research results, the paper researched the regional economic disparity and the evolvement characters through the 1990-2004 periods in Gansu province by calculating Gini indices, Theil indices, weighted variation coefficient and applying the method of GIS spatial statistical analysis and quantificationally evaluated the extent of regional economic disparities. The paper also analyzed the reasons for regional economic disparities and made some treatments for regional economy balanced development. Based on the analysis, the paper took some conclusions as follow:(1)In general, the regional economic disparity shows the increased trends but it has a change course of increase first to decrease next and increase last from 1990 to 2004 in Gansu province. Viewed on the industries, the results shows that the effects of secondary industry influenced to the disparities were decisive and the tertiary and primary industry was second. The "convergence effect" caused by spatial agglomeration of the secondary and tertiary industries was the decisive factor of the change of regional economic disparities. And it was the first industrial reason for the disparities increased that the trends of the spatial cluster strengthened.(2) Based on the integration of spatial statistical analysis and GIS, the results shows that the spatial pattern of the disparities didn't changed obviously from 1990 to 2004 and the regional economy presents a strong spatial clustering character. The spatial distribution of regional economy shows a trend of polarization and the disparities between developed regions such as Lanzhou, Jinchang, Jiayuguan and lag regions such as Linxia, Dingxi, Longnan were the main economic gaps and becoming more obvious.(3) The disparities and its change are caused by many factors such as natural resources, locates, geographical environment, capital, economic base, and economic structure and benefit, and so on. It is very important significance for decreasing the disparities and realizing the harmonious development to improve the infrastructure and increase the investment for education in lag regions.