Economic development and growth convergence in China

We investigate the issue of per capita real GDP growth convergence of the Chinese economy. The shrinkage method for panel data models is used to estimate the convergence rates of the individual provinces. The empirical evidence shows that growth convergence exists in China. Our analysis allows us to estimate the convergence rates for individual provinces. The results also show that the low-income provinces of the middle and the western regions are experiencing higher convergence rates.