Abstract
By applying key notions of evolutionary economics, this study develops an analytical framework to explain the differentiated evolutionary paths of convergence and divergence in the economic growth across China’s provinces since 1978. We adopt the nonparametric approach in the study, including both univariate and multivariate kernel density estimation. We find evidence that the convergence in economic growth across provinces does not take shape. Instead, a divergence exists in the economic growth of China. Furthermore, the evolutionary dynamics revealed by our kernel estimation suggests that the disparity of the economic growth rate continuously increases since 1978, not only among different provinces, but also among different areas within a single province.
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Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank the anonymous reviewers for their constructive and helpful comments on an earlier draft of this paper. The authors are grateful for the financial support from the National Natural Science Foundation of China, No. 71473169, No. 716731947 and No. 71473168 for Xiang Deng, No. 71402151 for Jing Song, and the Humanities and Social Sciences of Ministry of Education in China (No. 13XJA790002) for Jianping Li.
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Deng, X., Li, J., Song, J. (2017). Convergence or Divergence: A Nonparametric Analysis on China’s Regional Disparity. In: Pyka, A., Cantner, U. (eds) Foundations of Economic Change. Economic Complexity and Evolution. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-62009-1_6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-62009-1_6
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