Abstract
An interprovincial boundary region is a new subject of economic disparity study in China. This study explored the multi-scale spatio-temporal dynamics of economic development from 1995 to 2010 in the interprovincial boundary region of Sichuan-Yunnan-Guizhou, a mountain area and also the junction area of Tibetan Plateau, Hengduan Mountain, Yungui Plateau and Sichuan Basin in southwestern China. A quantitative study on county GDP per capita for different scales of administrative regions was conducted using the Theil index, Markov chains, a geographic information system and exploratory spatial data analysis. Results indicated that the economic disparity was closely related with geographical unit scale in the study area: the smaller the unit, the bigger the disparity, and the regional inequality gradually weakened over time. Moreover, significant positive spatial autocorrelation and clustering of economic development were also found. The spatial pattern of economic development presented approximate circle structure with two cores in the southwest and northeast. The Panxi region in the southwest core and a part of Hilly Sichuan Basin in the northeast core were considered to be hot spots of economic development. Most areas in the east and central region were persistently trapped in the low level of a balanced development state, with a poverty trap being formed in the central and south part. Geographical conditions and location, administrative barriers and the lack of effective growth poles may be the main reasons for the entire low level of balanced development. Our findings suggest that in order to achieve a high level of balanced development, attention should be paid beyond developing transportation and other infrastructure. Breaking down the rigid shackles of administrative districts that hinder trans-provincial cooperation and promoting new regional poles in the Yunnan-Guizhou region may have great significance for the study area.
Highlights
Owning to breakneck economic growth over the past three decades, China has become the world’s second largest economy [1], and is predicted to catch up with the US within 10 years
(1) The average Theil indexes of province-level units, prefecture-level units and county-level units are 0.047, 0.191 and 0.259, respectively. This means that the economic disparities are closely related with geographical scales, and the smaller the geographical scale, the bigger the disparity; (2) The disparity over time of the three level units shows an approximately similar reducing trend. This demonstrates that the economic inequality inside the IBR of Sichuan-Yunnan-Guizhou (IBRS) is gradually weakened during the development process; (3) The dynamic trends of the countyand prefecture-level units are simultaneous
The disparity of province-level units over the past 16 years keeps rather steady with the Theil index around 0.0500, which presents some kind of lock-in effect during their economic development over time
Summary
Owning to breakneck economic growth over the past three decades, China has become the world’s second largest economy [1], and is predicted to catch up with the US within 10 years. One needs to recognize that this economic achievement, has not been shared fairly across China’s different regions [2,3,4]. The regional economic inequality of China has been an issue of great importance for politicians and regional scientists [5,6,7]. The mentioned models can hardly truly reflect the variation and mechanism of regional spatial disparity. They have some shortcomings in assessing the spatial structure and evolution of regional economies due to the lack of a spatial econometric perspective and their ignoring of spatial autocorrelations as well as spatial heterogeneity [21,22]
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