Curse Or Bless:Does China Really Exist"Curse Of Resources"

This thesis investigates the hypothesis of resource curse in China by studying both the provincial and city level data. In the city level analysis, we employ the data of95cities in China from1997to2005and find no obvious evidence to indicate a definite relationship between resource dependence and economic development on city level in China. After controlling province dummy variables, however, we find that resource abundance in one city imposes significant positive spill-over effect on other cities within the same province. Moreover, an analysis on transmission channels of such spill-over effect reveals that although resource dependence significantly hinders manufacturing industry, R&D, entrepreneurship, openness, education and government efficiency within one city, it boosts manufacturing industry in other cities, which consists with "the Big Push" Theory. In the provincial analysis, we distinguish between resource abundance and resource dependence, and it shows that resource abundance itself promotes the economic growth, while it is the resource dependence that impedes the economic growth.