Quantitative analysis on the disparity of regional economic development in China and its evolution from 1952 to 2000

Domestic and foreign scholars have already done much research on regional disparity and its evolution in China, but there is a big difference in conclusions. What is the reason for this? We think it is mainly due to different analytic approaches, perspectives, spatial units, statistical indicators and different periods for studies. On the basis of previous analyses and findings, we have done some further quantitative computation and empirical study, and revealed the inter-provincial disparity and regional disparity of economic development and their evolution trends from 1952-2000. The results shows that (a) Regional disparity in economic development in China, including the inter-provincial disparity, inter-regional disparity and intra-regional disparity, has existed for years; (b) Gini coefficient and Theil coefficient have revealed a similar dynamic trend for comparative disparity in economic development between provinces in China. From 1952 to 1978, except for the "Great Leap Forward" period, comparative disparity basically assumes a upward trend and it assumed a slowly downward trend from 1979 to1990. Afterwards from 1991 to 2000 the disparity assumed a slowly upward trend again; (c) A comparison between Shanghai and Guizhou shows that absolute inter-provincial disparity has been quite big for years; and (d) The Hurst exponent (H=0.5) in the period of 1966-1978 indicates that the comparative inter-provincial disparity of economic development showed a random characteristic, and in the Hurst exponent (H>0.5) in period of 1979-2000 indicates that in this period the evolution of the comparative inter-provincial disparity of economic development in China has a long-enduring characteristic.