Spatial Concentration of Innovation Activities in China and the Role of Mega‐economic Zones

This paper analyzes the development of spatial concentration of various innovation activities in China from 2000 to 2015 by using a generalized Theil index based on a balanced provincial dataset. It tracks concentration development back to the developing heterogeneity within and between regions in general and the mega‐economic zones in particular. Results show that innovation activities tend to be distributed unequally across provinces in China, with more pronounced unequal distribution of innovation outcomes than innovation inputs. Over the research period, the innovation activities considered became more and more equally distributed across provinces. The between‐region inequality of innovation activities has, however, not yet significantly improved, despite the implementation of Chinese regional policies to encourage more equal regional development. Instead, more equal distribution of innovation activities within mega‐economic zones is observed.     

Analysis of Impact of Urbanization on Environmental Quality in China

As a developing country with great regional disparities, China's rapid urbanization has had important impacts on environmental quality. In this study, the drivers‐mechanisms‐effects (DME) model is built, which shows how element agglomeration, scale growth, knowledge accumulation and industry evolution drive the environmental system to change during the urbanization process. An econometric regression model using provincial panel data is further constructed to empirically analyze the impacts of urbanization on environmental quality. It is shown that during the process of urbanization in China, element agglomeration and knowledge accumulation help to improve environmental quality but with weak positive effect, while growing urban scale and industrial structure have obvious negative effects on environmental quality. The “inverted‐U shape” (up first and then down) change in the environmental quality during China's urbanization process is obvious. It is critical that China concentrates on the transformations of both city development paths and urbanization models to reduce resource and environmental costs as much as possible.     

Expenditure Inequality in Indonesia, 2008–2010: A Spatial Decomposition Analysis and the Role of Education

Based on the 2008–2010 Susenas panel data, this study examines expenditure inequality from spatial perspectives in Indonesia, using three decomposition methods: (i) a conventional Theil index decomposition; (ii) an alternative Theil index decomposition proposed by Elbers et al. (2008); and (iii) the Blinder?Oaxaca decomposition. Our results show that overall inequality in per capita expenditure increases between 2008 and 2010, which coincides with a rising trend in the official Gini coefficient. The contribution of inequality within urban and rural areas to total inequality is larger than that of inequality between urban and rural areas. Looking within urban and rural areas, urban inequality is significantly higher than rural inequality. Java‐Bali in particular records very high urban inequality. Overall, urban inequality increases, urban–rural inequality remains stable, rural inequality decreases, and inequality at the national level increases. Although urban–rural inequality has a relatively low share in overall inequality, the share is not small enough to ignore its impact. Furthermore, when using the alternative decomposition method, the contribution of urban–rural inequality increases substantially. The present study also found that educational differences appear to have played an important role in expenditure inequality within urban areas and between urban and rural areas.     

Evolution of Urban–rural Living Standards Inequality in Thailand: 1990–2006

The present study examines the developments in urban–rural living standard inequality in Thailand from 1990 to 2006 using a methodology that allows for the identification of individual contributors to changes in inequality. We also propose a method to analyze the changes over time in urban–rural living standards. We find that the urban–rural gap in living standards in Thailand has narrowed substantially since the early 1990s, both at the mean and especially for households in the upper part of the expenditure distribution; however, the narrowing of the gap at the bottom of the expenditure distribution has been negligible. The study also identifies the main individual contributors to changes over time in living standards between urban and rural areas in Thailand.     

City Size,Population Concentration and Productivity: Evidence from China

This paper investigates the impact of China's city size and urban population concentration on city productivity by developing a distinctive index based on global nighttime light data. Using the panel data of 280 prefecture cities from 2004 to 2013 and employing dynamic system generalized method of moments and panel threshold model regression techniques, our results show that city size has a positive impact on city productivity; therefore, cities in China still have the potential to expand. While moderate urban population concentration can benefit city productivity, excessively concentrated urban population distribution may impede the growth of city productivity. We also find that the level of labor income significantly affects the impacts of urban agglomeration on labor productivity. Therefore, our results imply that city development policies should focus more on how to appropriately allocate economic activities and adjust population distribution in urban areas according to different stages of economic development.     

东西部经济态势与民营经济发展差距的相关性

改革开放以来,我国东西差距不断扩大,即使在实施西部大开发之后,这种不断扩大的趋势也没有得到有效的扼制。就东西部经济发展态势与其民营经济发展差距的相关性进行实证分析,发现东西经济发展差距与民营经济发展差距呈强正相关性,从而证实了“东西差距的根本是民营经济发展的差距”的论断。     

Industrial Structural Change and Economic Growth in China, 1987–2008

The present paper studies the sources of economic growth and the nature of structural change in the Chinese economy from 1987 to 2008. Using a methodology that evaluates the contribution of an industry to economic growth, the present paper shows that the post‐2000 subperiod marked an increased reliance on the services sector as a source of growth in the Chinese economy. Much of the acceleration in real GDP or aggregate labor productivity growth in China in the post‐2000 subperiod compared to the pre‐2000 period can be traced to an increased contribution from service‐producing and high‐technology exporting manufacturing industries. The evidence indicates that the Chinese economy has been rebalancing toward domestic consumption and shifting its export sector toward high‐technology manufacturing industries.     

Urban‐biased Policies and the Increasing Rural–Urban Expenditure Gap in Vietnam in the 1990s

There was a significant and widening rural–urban gap during the economic boom in Vietnam in the 1990s. Using an econometric decomposition, we find that differences in individual characteristics such as education, ethnicity and age are the primary explanation for this widening gap, whereas differences in the returns to these characteristics are the primary explanation for the increase in the gap at higher percentiles. We then argue that government investment policies and the manipulation of price incentives were important factors behind the gap. In particular, we argue that government policies created some benefit to urban dwellers at the expense of rural areas, lending support to Lipton's urban‐bias hypothesis, which states that government, under strong political pressure from the urban population, directs resources from rural to urban areas without consideration of efficiency or equity.     

High‐speed Rail and Urban Economic Growth in China after the Global Financial Crisis

High‐speed rail (HSR) has been an important driver of China's economic expansion over the last decade. Using data of 285 prefecture‐level cities over 2010–2014, this paper proposes an endogenous economic growth model to explain how and why HSR may have propelled China's economic growth by reducing the time‐space between cities. The research results show that HSR has a potent effect on urban economic growth and regional convergence. Ceteris paribus, HSR appears to have accelerated economic growth by more than 0.6 percent and the pace of regional economic convergence by approximately 2 percent per annum over the data period. Our research findings have important policy implications for the sustainability of China's economic development, backed by HSR.     

Taxation and the Environment–Health–Poverty Trap: A Policy Experiment Perspective

Under pressures related to economic growth and environmental protection, China is facing an increasingly severe “environment–health–poverty” trap risk. Fuel taxation is generally considered an effective policy to counter such a risk. Since 2009 China has raised the fuel tax rate many times to enhance tax reform. However, the effects of this policy remain unknown. Therefore, it is vitally important to estimate the impacts of China's current fuel taxation policy on environment, public health and the national economy. As the first attempt in existing literature on China, this paper builds a general equilibrium framework with the feedback effect of public health on economy. We find that that the fuel tax policy benefits the adjustment of the economic structure and improves human health; however, it is detrimental to economic growth, public welfare and price stability. In this sense, it plays a limited role in reducing the trap risk and might not be sustainable in the long term.     

成渝经济区作为西部增长极的SWOT分析

成渝经济区是长江上游的经济核心,其实质是以重庆、成都两市为中心,由重庆城市群、成都都市圈、成内（遂）渝经济带、成德绵城市带以及川南城市群组成的成渝城市集群。文章在成渝经济区作为西部增长极的背景下,对该经济区进行SWOT分析,以便更好地实现它的战略意义,促进西部乃至中国经济发展的作用得以充分发挥。     

The Role of Public Infrastructure in China's Regional Inequality and Growth: A Simultaneous Equations Approach

Using a simultaneous equations approach, this paper empirically investigates the impact of two types of public infrastructure, transportation infrastructure and knowledge infrastructure, on industrial geography, regional income disparities, and growth across 286 cities in China. It is found that an improvement in transportation infrastructure that reduces trade costs on goods increases growth and decreases income gap at the expense of increasing industrial agglomeration between cities. Therefore, this paper confirms the existence of a trade‐off between spatial equity (more even spatial distribution of economic activities) and spatial efficiency (higher growth rate). However, for knowledge infrastructure that reduces trade costs on ideas, it is found that it increases growth but also decreases income gap and industrial agglomeration simultaneously. Moreover, the impact of knowledge infrastructure is found to be larger in the case of high labor mobility.     

Inequality and Determinants of Earnings in Malaysia, 1984–1997*

Using three large nationally‐representative Malaysian Household Income Surveys from 1984, 1989 and 1997, the present paper examines inequality and determinants of earnings. During the period 1984–1997, Malaysia's real per capita GDP increased by approximately 70percent, the participation rates for both men and women went up among all age groups, and the average number of years of schooling increased by 1.2years. There was a significant relative wage improvement among the bottom deciles. The rate of return to an additional year of schooling remained high (at 10percent), despite the huge increase in the supply of the highly educated. The stable overall rate, however, masks an increased rate of return on women's education, and a decreased rate for men. Wage discrimination against women amounts to 16–20percent, and the bias has increased in 1997. The pro‐Chinese earning ethnic bias is estimated at 31percent.     

Value,Structure and Spatial Distribution of Interprovincial Trade in China

This study uses two different datasets to explore the stylized facts of interprovincial trade in China during the recent two decades. One dataset provides the magnitude of bilateral interprovincial goods trade calculated using firms' value‐added tax invoices. The other supplies estimates of interprovincial trade using provincial input–output tables. We find that China has both a large value and a high growth rate of interprovincial trade, but there still exists a home bias in internal trade for most provinces. In addition, disaggregation by product shows that the manufacturing sector has the largest share of interprovincial trade and this share continues to grow. Finally, the spatial distribution of trade suggests that all provinces can be clustered into a smaller number of trade areas with large intra‐cluster trade. Therefore, China's central government should make more effort to reduce local protection, stimulate domestic demand and coordinate interregional trade among local jurisdictions.     

The Inequality of Regional Economic Development in China between 1991 and 2001

This paper measures the unequal development of the regional economies in China and investigates the primary factors leading to the inequality. The official data on China's regional GDP and the regional GDP of three industrial sectors from 1991–2001, as reported in the China Statistical Yearbook and A Statistical Survey of China, are adopted to calculate and decompose the Gini coefficient for each year. The primary finding is that the levels of inequality in China's regional economies clearly showed a slight upward trend after 1991. The inequality of the overall GDP is primarily attributed to the between-group effect rather than to the within-group effect. It is also found that the regional inequality of the secondary industry sector's development accounted for half of the overall inequality. Thus, this study suggests that it is crucial for China to formulate and adhere to policies that will help it to develop the economy more equally among all areas and to develop the secondary industry sector among all regions/provinces in order to overcome the important issue of the inequality in regional economic development.     

东中西部文化产业发展比较研究

国家"十二五"规划明确提出把文化产业打造成国民经济的支柱性产业。虽然我国的文化产业初具规模,但是由于经济发展水平和资源要素禀赋的不同,东中西部在文化产业上的发展阶段和发展方式上的区域不平衡状况明显。从整体看,东部是我国文化产业发展最好的地区,形成了以市场为主导的模式;中部作为东西部地区的连接,文化产业的发展处于二者之间,形成了兼具东西部特点的发展模式;西部凭借自身特有的条件,文化产业的发展形成了资源、产业加政府为主导的模式。文章从三者各自的实际情况出发,深入探讨了各自存在的问题,并提出了相应的政策建议。     

西部旅游资源开发存在的问题和对策研究

西部地区只有抓住机遇，迎接挑战，充分发挥自己的旅游资源优势，解决开发中出现的问题和克服各种困难，才能促进西部地区旅游经济的大发展。     

Rural–urban migration and urbanization in China: Evidence from time-series and cross-section analyses

Since 1978, China has experienced a rapid and unprecedented process of urbanization, created by the history's largest flow of rural–urban migration in the world. This article attempts (a) to assess the role of the cityward migration in China's urbanization in 1978–1999 and (b) to empirically investigate factors behind the migration boom with time-series and cross-section data. We find that (a) rural–urban migration made dominant contributions to Chinese urban population growth; (b) while moving together with the Chinese economy, the causal link runs from economic growth to migration, not vice versa; (c) interprovince migrants were encouraged by the rural–urban income gap and discouraged by their geographic distances to destinations; and (d) the amount of intraprovince migrants is positively related to rural–urban income gap and urban population in that province.     

西部12省(区、市)经济发展战略定位比较及其评估

比较西部12省(区、市)的总体发展战略、经济发展战略、经济发展具体操作性方略的共性和差异性,可以发现:西部省(区、市)经济发展战略须与中央经济发展战略保持一致、契合当地总体发展战略的方向和思路、因应内外发展环境、符合当地发展实际。经济发展战略的基本框架涵盖三化政策、产业发展政策、区域协调发展政策、经济体制改革和对外开放政策、科技创新和人才队伍建设政策、基础配套政策、生态环保政策和特殊政策。在制定西部经济发展战略时,要用好用活用足中央给予的优惠政策;吸收其他省(区、市)经济发展战略和具体举措;促进省际联动;着力弥补经济发展中的短板;成立多方组成的智库,使经济发展战略的制定更趋科学化;加强宣传,注重舆论引导;重视人才队伍建设;搞好配套建设。