出口开放、地区市场规模和经济增长

报酬递增是跨国或区域经济增长发散的重要动因,而市场范围的大小则决定了报酬递增的程度。本文的实证研究发现,地区市场规模和出口开放程度显著地影响了1970—2000年各省区人均收入的增长速度;在地区差距的形成和演进过程中,国外和地区市场是相互替代的,而一旦控制了市场规模因素,各个省区即呈现明显的收敛趋势。本文根据地理特征构造工具变量,有效地控制了变量的内生性问题。

Export Openness, Regional Market Size and Economic Growth

Increasing return causes international or regional economic divergence, and the extent of the market in turn determines the scope of increasing returns. This paper finds that, regional market size and export openness jointly shape the growth rates of income per capita in China's provinces from 1970 to 2000. They also show empirically the relationship of substitution during the dynamics of China's regional disparity. Another interesting finding is that convergence across provinces can be achieved significantly once the factor of extent of market is controlled. By constructing instrument variable in term of the geographic characteristics, we efficiently tackle the problem of endogeneity in the regressions.