IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/arx/papers/1703.01292.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Quantifying China's Regional Economic Complexity

Author

Listed:
  • Jian Gao
  • Tao Zhou

Abstract

China has experienced an outstanding economic expansion during the past decades, however, literature on non-monetary metrics that reveal the status of China's regional economic development are still lacking. In this paper, we fill this gap by quantifying the economic complexity of China's provinces through analyzing 25 years' firm data. First, we estimate the regional economic complexity index (ECI), and show that the overall time evolution of provinces' ECI is relatively stable and slow. Then, after linking ECI to the economic development and the income inequality, we find that the explanatory power of ECI is positive for the former but negative for the latter. Next, we compare different measures of economic diversity and explore their relationships with monetary macroeconomic indicators. Results show that the ECI index and the non-linear iteration based Fitness index are comparative, and they both have stronger explanatory power than other benchmark measures. Further multivariate regressions suggest the robustness of our results after controlling other socioeconomic factors. Our work moves forward a step towards better understanding China's regional economic development and non-monetary macroeconomic indicators.

Suggested Citation

  • Jian Gao & Tao Zhou, 2017. "Quantifying China's Regional Economic Complexity," Papers 1703.01292, arXiv.org, revised Nov 2017.
    • Handle: RePEc:arx:papers:1703.01292
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://arxiv.org/pdf/1703.01292
    File Function: Latest version
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Liran Einav & Jonathan Levin, 2014. "The Data Revolution and Economic Analysis," Innovation Policy and the Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 14(1), pages 1-24.
    2. Cesar A. Hidalgo & Ricardo Hausmann, 2009. "The Building Blocks of Economic Complexity," Papers 0909.3890, arXiv.org.
    3. Zheng Song & Kjetil Storesletten & Fabrizio Zilibotti, 2011. "Growing Like China," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 101(1), pages 196-233, February.
    4. Deininger, Klaus & Squire, Lyn, 1996. "A New Data Set Measuring Income Inequality," The World Bank Economic Review, World Bank, vol. 10(3), pages 565-591, September.
    5. Guanghua Wan & Ming Lu & Zhao Chen, 2007. "Globalization And Regional Income Inequality: Empirical Evidence From Within China," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 53(1), pages 35-59, March.
    6. Levine, Ross & Zervos, Sara, 1998. "Stock Markets, Banks, and Economic Growth," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 88(3), pages 537-558, June.
    7. Matthieu Cristelli & Andrea Gabrielli & Andrea Tacchella & Guido Caldarelli & Luciano Pietronero, 2013. "Measuring the Intangibles: A Metrics for the Economic Complexity of Countries and Products," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 8(8), pages 1-20, August.
    8. Li,Shi & Sato,Hiroshi & Sicular,Terry (ed.), 2013. "Rising Inequality in China," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9781107002913, January.
    9. Philip Salesses & Katja Schechtner & César A Hidalgo, 2013. "The Collaborative Image of The City: Mapping the Inequality of Urban Perception," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 8(7), pages 1-12, July.
    10. Daniel S. Hamermesh, 2013. "Six Decades of Top Economics Publishing: Who and How?," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 51(1), pages 162-172, March.
    11. Hausmann, Ricardo & Hidalgo, Cesar, 2014. "The Atlas of Economic Complexity: Mapping Paths to Prosperity," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262525429, December.
    12. Viktor Stojkoski & Zoran Utkovski & Ljupco Kocarev, 2016. "The Impact of Services on Economic Complexity: Service Sophistication as Route for Economic Growth," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 11(8), pages 1-29, August.
    13. Ron Martin & Peter Sunley, 2010. "Complexity Thinking and Evolutionary Economic Geography," Chapters, in: Ron Boschma & Ron Martin (ed.), The Handbook of Evolutionary Economic Geography, chapter 4, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    14. Hartmann, Dominik & Guevara, Miguel R. & Jara-Figueroa, Cristian & Aristarán, Manuel & Hidalgo, César A., 2017. "Linking Economic Complexity, Institutions, and Income Inequality," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 93(C), pages 75-93.
    15. N. Gregory Mankiw & David Romer & David N. Weil, 1992. "A Contribution to the Empirics of Economic Growth," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 107(2), pages 407-437.
    16. Manuel Sebastian Mariani & Alexandre Vidmer & Matus Medo & Yi-Cheng Zhang, 2015. "Measuring economic complexity of countries and products: which metric to use?," Papers 1509.01482, arXiv.org.
    17. Bahar, Dany & Hausmann, Ricardo & Hidalgo, Cesar A., 2014. "Neighbors and the evolution of the comparative advantage of nations: Evidence of international knowledge diffusion?," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 92(1), pages 111-123.
    18. Ricardo Hausmann & César Hidalgo, 2011. "The network structure of economic output," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 16(4), pages 309-342, December.
    19. Hyunyoung Choi & Hal Varian, 2012. "Predicting the Present with Google Trends," The Economic Record, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 88(s1), pages 2-9, June.
    20. Alejandro Llorente & Manuel Garcia-Herranz & Manuel Cebrian & Esteban Moro, 2015. "Social Media Fingerprints of Unemployment," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 10(5), pages 1-13, May.
    21. Matthieu Cristelli & Andrea Tacchella & Luciano Pietronero, 2015. "The Heterogeneous Dynamics of Economic Complexity," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 10(2), pages 1-15, February.
    22. Deininger, Klaus & Squire, Lyn, 1996. "A New Data Set Measuring Income Inequality," The World Bank Economic Review, World Bank, vol. 10(3), pages 565-591, September.
    23. Doll, Christopher N.H. & Muller, Jan-Peter & Morley, Jeremy G., 2006. "Mapping regional economic activity from night-time light satellite imagery," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 57(1), pages 75-92, April.
    24. Gao, Jian & Zhou, Tao, 2017. "Evaluating user reputation in online rating systems via an iterative group-based ranking method," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 473(C), pages 546-560.
    25. C. A. Hidalgo & B. Klinger & A. -L. Barabasi & R. Hausmann, 2007. "The Product Space Conditions the Development of Nations," Papers 0708.2090, arXiv.org.
    26. Sanja Šćepanović & Igor Mishkovski & Pan Hui & Jukka K Nurminen & Antti Ylä-Jääski, 2015. "Mobile Phone Call Data as a Regional Socio-Economic Proxy Indicator," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 10(4), pages 1-15, April.
    27. Li, Hongyi & Squire, Lyn & Zou, Heng-fu, 1998. "Explaining International and Intertemporal Variations in Income Inequality," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 108(446), pages 26-43, January.
    28. Hal R. Varian, 2014. "Big Data: New Tricks for Econometrics," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 28(2), pages 3-28, Spring.
    29. Giulio Cainelli & Rinaldo Evangelista & Maria Savona, 2006. "Innovation and economic performance in services: a firm-level analysis," Cambridge Journal of Economics, Cambridge Political Economy Society, vol. 30(3), pages 435-458, May.
    30. Manuel Mariani & Alexandre Vidmer & Matsúš Medo & Yi-Cheng Zhang, 2015. "Measuring economic complexity of countries and products: which metric to use?," The European Physical Journal B: Condensed Matter and Complex Systems, Springer;EDP Sciences, vol. 88(11), pages 1-9, November.
    31. Felipe, Jesus & Kumar, Utsav & Abdon, Arnelyn & Bacate, Marife, 2012. "Product complexity and economic development," Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, Elsevier, vol. 23(1), pages 36-68.
    32. Liu, Jin-Hu & Wang, Jun & Shao, Junming & Zhou, Tao, 2016. "Online social activity reflects economic status," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 457(C), pages 581-589.
    33. Steven N. Durlauf, 2005. "Complexity and Empirical Economics," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 115(504), pages 225-243, June.
    34. Yuan, Jia & Zhang, Qian-Ming & Gao, Jian & Zhang, Linyan & Wan, Xue-Song & Yu, Xiao-Jun & Zhou, Tao, 2016. "Promotion and resignation in employee networks," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 444(C), pages 442-447.
    35. Lucas, Robert Jr., 1988. "On the mechanics of economic development," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 22(1), pages 3-42, July.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. repec:zbw:bofitp:2018_008 is not listed on IDEAS
    2. Lyubimov, Ivan & Gvozdeva, Margarita & Lysyuk, Maria, 2018. "Towards increased complexity in Russian regions : networks, diversification and growth," BOFIT Discussion Papers 8/2018, Bank of Finland, Institute for Economies in Transition.
    3. Lyubimov, Ivan L. (Любимов, Иван) & Gvozdeva, Margarita V. (Гвоздева, Маргарита) & Lysyuk, Maria A. (Лысюк, Мария), 2018. "Measuring Regional Development with the Network Theory Approach [Использование Теории Сетей При Составлении Рейтингов Развития Региональных Экономик]," Ekonomicheskaya Politika / Economic Policy, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration, vol. 3, pages 206-233, June.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Cem Çağrı Dönmez & Abdulkadir Atalan, 2019. "Developing Statistical Optimization Models for Urban Competitiveness Index: Under the Boundaries of Econophysics Approach," Complexity, Hindawi, vol. 2019, pages 1-11, November.
    2. Zoran Utkovski & Melanie F Pradier & Viktor Stojkoski & Fernando Perez-Cruz & Ljupco Kocarev, 2018. "Economic complexity unfolded: Interpretable model for the productive structure of economies," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 13(8), pages 1-24, August.
    3. Balland, Pierre-Alexandre & Broekel, Tom & Diodato, Dario & Giuliani, Elisa & Hausmann, Ricardo & O'Clery, Neave & Rigby, David, 2022. "Reprint of The new paradigm of economic complexity," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 51(8).
    4. Chu, Lan Khanh & Hoang, Dung Phuong, 2020. "How does economic complexity influence income inequality? New evidence from international data," Economic Analysis and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 68(C), pages 44-57.
    5. Balland, Pierre-Alexandre & Broekel, Tom & Diodato, Dario & Giuliani, Elisa & Hausmann, Ricardo & O'Clery, Neave & Rigby, David, 2022. "The new paradigm of economic complexity," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 51(3).
    6. Antonios Garas & Sophie Guthmuller & Athanasios Lapatinas, 2021. "The development of nations conditions the disease space," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 16(1), pages 1-35, January.
    7. Viktor Stojkoski & Zoran Utkovski & Ljupco Kocarev, 2016. "The Impact of Services on Economic Complexity: Service Sophistication as Route for Economic Growth," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 11(8), pages 1-29, August.
    8. Hidalgo, César A., 2023. "The policy implications of economic complexity," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 52(9).
    9. Ming-Yang Zhou & Xiao-Yu Li & Wen-Man Xiong & Hao Liao, 2018. "Quantifying the Robustness of Countries’ Competitiveness by Network-Based Methods," Complexity, Hindawi, vol. 2018, pages 1-10, December.
    10. Ha, Le Thanh & Dung, Hoang Phuong & Thanh, To Trung, 2021. "Economic complexity and shadow economy: A multi-dimensional analysis," Economic Analysis and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 72(C), pages 408-422.
    11. Freire, Clovis, 2019. "Economic diversification: A model of structural economic dynamics and endogenous technological change," Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, Elsevier, vol. 49(C), pages 13-28.
    12. Diogo Ferraz & Fernanda P. S. Falguera & Enzo B. Mariano & Dominik Hartmann, 2021. "Linking Economic Complexity, Diversification, and Industrial Policy with Sustainable Development: A Structured Literature Review," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(3), pages 1-29, January.
    13. Olimpia Neagu, 2019. "The Link between Economic Complexity and Carbon Emissions in the European Union Countries: A Model Based on the Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC) Approach," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(17), pages 1-27, August.
    14. Vu, Trung V., 2020. "Economic complexity and health outcomes: A global perspective," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 265(C).
    15. Mealy, Penny & Teytelboym, Alexander, 2017. "Economic Complexity and the Green Economy," INET Oxford Working Papers 2018-03, Institute for New Economic Thinking at the Oxford Martin School, University of Oxford, revised Feb 2019.
    16. Antonis Adam & Antonios Garas & Marina-Selini Katsaiti & Athanasios Lapatinas, 2023. "Economic complexity and jobs: an empirical analysis," Economics of Innovation and New Technology, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 32(1), pages 25-52, January.
    17. Gnangnon, Sèna Kimm, 2022. "Effect of the utilization of non-reciprocal trade preferences offered by the QUAD countries on beneficiary countries' economic complexity," Journal of the Japanese and International Economies, Elsevier, vol. 65(C).
    18. Bernardo Caldarola & Dario Mazzilli & Lorenzo Napolitano & Aurelio Patelli & Angelica Sbardella, 2023. "Economic complexity and the sustainability transition: A review of data, methods, and literature," Papers 2308.07172, arXiv.org, revised Mar 2024.
    19. Emilie Le Caous & Fenghueih Huarng, 2020. "Economic Complexity and the Mediating Effects of Income Inequality: Reaching Sustainable Development in Developing Countries," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(5), pages 1-26, March.
    20. Shahzad, Umer & Madaleno, Mara & Dagar, Vishal & Ghosh, Sudeshna & Doğan, Buhari, 2022. "Exploring the role of export product quality and economic complexity for economic progress of developed economies: Does institutional quality matter?," Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, Elsevier, vol. 62(C), pages 40-51.

    More about this item

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:arx:papers:1703.01292. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: arXiv administrators (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://arxiv.org/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.