Club Convergence Of Regional Economic Growth In China

"Club convergence"is a research relatively weak domain in the research of regional economic development convergence. The western academic circles started takes research of the club convergence until 1990s intermediate stages. In the previous studies, regions were mostly regarded as'island', it was supposed to be independent and seal. But in real world, regional economic is a open system, such as knowledge and technological diffusion and the mobile of people and factors, all have influence to regions and there neighbors by agglomeration and radiation effect. So regional economic is not independent but related to each other. This means that the previous studies which neglected the spatial dynamics possible have the problem of used irrelevancy models or received uncertainly deduction. Recent years, along the development of Exploratory Spatial Data Analysis, economic geographer started considers the influence to club convergence by spatial autocorrelation. Under the premise of the spatial autocorrelation of regional economic development, through technologies as Markov chain, Spatial Markov chain, spatial regression models, the paper analysis the club convergence of regional economic development during 1990-2004. This dissertation is divided into five chapters.Chapter one indicates the significance of the research, and analysis the internal and external literatures, and point out the problems of the previous research is neglected the influence of spatial autocorrelation in the regional economic development. Then put forward the research thought of the paper on this basis.Chapter two first briefly introduces the research regions, basic research cell, data source, then introduces the methods of this paper detailed. the main methods are Markov chains, Spatial Markov chain, spatial regression models.Chapter three first studies the space-time evolvement characteristics of club convergence in the development of china regional economy. Then, the paper denote the spatial correlation of regions through constructs the matrix of spatial weigh, contracts the matrix of Spatial Markov chain on the condition of region spatial lag quantity, and analysis the role of spatial factors in the club convergence of regional economics.Chapter four include contents as follow firstly, calculating the intensity of spatial autocorrelation of the development of china regional economy by using Moran's I coefficient, dividing the spatial autocorrelation into four types using Moran spot chart, and exploring its spatial pattern using Moran map.Chapter five studies the effects of spatial autocorrelation on the convergence of china regional economic development using the spatial lag model and spatial error model.Chapter six is conclusion, defect are point out, and suggestions for future study are proposed.The dissertation draws main conclusions as follows:First, there has a phenomenon of"club convergence"from 1990 to 2004 of china regional economic development in the city criterion. In temporal, regions inclined to either high income club or low income club. High income club and low income club were more steady, middle-high income regions and middle-low income regions are relatively unsteady, and trended into both sides.Second, the club convergence of china regional economic in the city criterion is dependence on space. High income club and low income club were more steady and expanded continuously in space. The levels and spatial structure of regional economic growth were polarized more and more.Third, neighbor regional environment and the space relation among the rigions had important influences on the economic growth of a region and the convergence club which to transfer. Spatial autocorrelation and spatial dependence play an important role in the formation of"space club". Generally, high income"neighbor regional environment"make for the development of regional economy, and low income"neighbor regional environment"make against for the development of regional economy. This induce to the space centralize of of rich and poor cities.Four, there exists strong spatial correlation in china economic growth in the city criterion and its relevance has been rising. In geographical space, there is an obvious spatial clustering phenomenon, the high-income cities are mainly concentrated in the eastern coastal area, and low-income cities are mainly concentrated in the West, particularly in the south-west region. The two clubs are mutual separation on space and the high-income areas expanded obviously, the low-income areas also have certain expansion, the club convergence has been evolving to the"spatial club convergence".