IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/bos/wpaper/wp2007-22.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Catching Up or Falling Behind? Income Distribution of Chinese Cities

Author

Listed:
  • Chun-Yu Ho

    (Department of Economics, Boston University)

  • Dan Li

    (Department of Economics, Boston University)

Abstract

This paper analyzes the evolution of Chinese urban income distribution across space and time in post-reform era. Our results suggest no evidence on income convergence across cities during the period 1984-2003. We find that cities with comparable income level are likely to be co-located in the same region; further, cities tend to mirror the mobility of their counterparts located in the same province, but not the same region. The divergence in urban income across the nation will continue if the current economic growth pattern persists in the future.

Suggested Citation

  • Chun-Yu Ho & Dan Li, 2007. "Catching Up or Falling Behind? Income Distribution of Chinese Cities," Boston University - Department of Economics - Working Papers Series WP2007-22, Boston University - Department of Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:bos:wpaper:wp2007-22
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.bu.edu/econ/workingpapers/papers/income.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Romer, Paul M, 1986. "Increasing Returns and Long-run Growth," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 94(5), pages 1002-1037, October.
    2. George Hammond, 2004. "Metropolitan/non-metropolitan divergence: A spatial Markov chain approach," Papers in Regional Science, Springer;Regional Science Association International, vol. 83(3), pages 543-563, July.
    3. Papageorgiou, Yorgo Y & Smith, Terrence R, 1983. "Agglomeration as Local Instability of Spatially Uniform Steady-States," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 51(4), pages 1109-1119, July.
    4. Quah, Danny, 1993. "Empirical cross-section dynamics in economic growth," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 37(2-3), pages 426-434, April.
    5. Quah, Danny, 1997. "Empirics for growth and distribution," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 2138, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    6. Robert J. Barro, 1991. "Economic Growth in a Cross Section of Countries," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 106(2), pages 407-443.
    7. 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.
    8. Quah, Danny, 1997. "Empirics for Growth and Distribution: Stratification, Polarization, and Convergence Clubs," CEPR Discussion Papers 1586, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    9. Vernon Henderson, 2002. "Urbanization in Developing Countries," The World Bank Research Observer, World Bank, vol. 17(1), pages 89-112.
    10. Gallup, John L. & Sachs, Jeffrey D. & Mellinger, Andrew, "undated". "Geography and Economic Development," Instructional Stata datasets for econometrics geodata, Boston College Department of Economics.
    11. Zhang, Tao & Zou, Heng-fu, 1998. "Fiscal decentralization, public spending, and economic growth in China," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 67(2), pages 221-240, February.
    12. Meng, Xin, 2003. "Unemployment, consumption smoothing, and precautionary saving in urban China," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 31(3), pages 465-485, September.
    13. Bai, Chong-En & Du, Yingjuan & Tao, Zhigang & Tong, Sarah Y., 2004. "Local protectionism and regional specialization: evidence from China's industries," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 63(2), pages 397-417, July.
    14. Glaeser, Edward L. & Scheinkman, JoseA. & Shleifer, Andrei, 1995. "Economic growth in a cross-section of cities," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 36(1), pages 117-143, August.
    15. Anderson, Gordon & Ge, Ying, 2005. "The size distribution of Chinese cities," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 35(6), pages 756-776, November.
    16. Quah, D., 1990. "Galton'S Fallacy And The Tests Of The Convergence Hypothesis," Working papers 552, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Department of Economics.
    17. Alwyn Young, 2000. "The Razor's Edge: Distortions and Incremental Reform in the People's Republic of China," NBER Working Papers 7828, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    18. repec:bla:etrans:v:11:y:2003-03:i:1:p:25-39 is not listed on IDEAS
    19. Danny Quah, 1997. "Empirics for Growth and Distribution," CEP Discussion Papers dp0324, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.
    20. Alwyn Young, 2000. "The Razor's Edge: Distortions and Incremental Reform in the People's Republic of China," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 115(4), pages 1091-1135.
    21. repec:bla:scandj:v:95:y:1993:i:4:p:427-43 is not listed on IDEAS
    22. 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)

    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. Chun‐Yu Ho & Dan Li, 2010. "Spatial Dependence and Divergence across Chinese Cities," Review of Development Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 14(2), pages 386-403, May.
    2. Steven N. Durlauf & Andros Kourtellos & Chih Ming Tan, 2008. "Empirics of Growth and Development," Chapters, in: Amitava Krishna Dutt & Jaime Ros (ed.), International Handbook of Development Economics, Volumes 1 & 2, volume 0, chapter 3, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    3. Völlmecke, Dominik & Jindra, Björn & Marek, Philipp, 2016. "FDI, human capital and income convergence—Evidence for European regions," Economic Systems, Elsevier, vol. 40(2), pages 288-307.
    4. Sheila Chapman & Stefania Cosci & Loredana Mirra, 2012. "Income dynamics in an enlarged Europe: the role of capital regions," The Annals of Regional Science, Springer;Western Regional Science Association, vol. 48(3), pages 663-693, June.
    5. Miketa, Asami & Mulder, Peter, 2005. "Energy productivity across developed and developing countries in 10 manufacturing sectors: Patterns of growth and convergence," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 27(3), pages 429-453, May.
    6. Leone Leonida & Leone Leonida & Daniel Montolio, 2003. "Public Capital, Growth and Convergence in Spain. A Counterfactual Density Estimation Approach," Working Papers 2003/3, Institut d'Economia de Barcelona (IEB).
    7. Durlauf, Steven N. & Quah, Danny T., 1999. "The new empirics of economic growth," Handbook of Macroeconomics, in: J. B. Taylor & M. Woodford (ed.), Handbook of Macroeconomics, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 4, pages 235-308, Elsevier.
    8. Peter Mulder & Henri Groot, 2007. "Sectoral Energy- and Labour-Productivity Convergence," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 36(1), pages 85-112, January.
    9. Durlauf,S.N., 2003. "The convergence hypothesis after 10 years," Working papers 6, Wisconsin Madison - Social Systems.
    10. Grafström, Jonas, 2017. "An Econometric Analysis of Divergence of Renewable Energy Invention Efforts in Europe," Ratio Working Papers 295, The Ratio Institute.
    11. Breinlich, Holger & Ottaviano, Gianmarco I.P. & Temple, Jonathan R.W., 2014. "Regional Growth and Regional Decline," Handbook of Economic Growth, in: Philippe Aghion & Steven Durlauf (ed.), Handbook of Economic Growth, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 4, pages 683-779, Elsevier.
    12. Grafström, Jonas & Jaunky, Vishal, 2017. "Convergence of Incentive Capabilities within the European Union," Ratio Working Papers 301, The Ratio Institute.
    13. Leone Leonida & Daniel Montolio, 2001. "Convergence and Inter-Distributional Dynamics among the Spanish Provinces. A Non-parametric Density Estimation Approach," Working Papers 2001/7, Institut d'Economia de Barcelona (IEB).
    14. Peter Mulder & Henri Groot, 2007. "Sectoral Energy- and Labour-Productivity Convergence," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 36(1), pages 85-112, January.
    15. Jonas Grafström, 2018. "Divergence of renewable energy invention efforts in Europe: an econometric analysis based on patent counts," Environmental Economics and Policy Studies, Springer;Society for Environmental Economics and Policy Studies - SEEPS, vol. 20(4), pages 829-859, October.
    16. Gadea Rivas, Maria Dolores & Sanz Villarroya, Isabel, 2017. "Testing the convergence hypothesis for OECD countries: A reappraisal," Economics - The Open-Access, Open-Assessment E-Journal (2007-2020), Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel), vol. 11, pages 1-22.
    17. Andersson, Fredrik N.G. & Edgerton, David L. & Opper, Sonja, 2013. "A Matter of Time: Revisiting Growth Convergence in China," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 45(C), pages 239-251.
    18. Sulekha Hembram & Souparna Maji & Sushil Kr. Haldar, 2019. "Club Convergence among the Major Indian States During 1982–2014: Does Investment in Human Capital Matter?," South Asia Economic Journal, Institute of Policy Studies of Sri Lanka, vol. 20(2), pages 184-204, September.
    19. Paul Johnson & Chris Papageorgiou, 2020. "What Remains of Cross-Country Convergence?," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 58(1), pages 129-175, March.
    20. Sulekha Hembram & Sushil Kr. Haldar, 2019. "Beta, sigma and club convergence: Indian experience from 1980 to 2015," Indian Economic Review, Springer, vol. 54(2), pages 343-366, December.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    City Income Distribution; Convergence; Markov Process; Spatial Dependence; China;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • O15 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Economic Development: Human Resources; Human Development; Income Distribution; Migration
    • O18 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Urban, Rural, Regional, and Transportation Analysis; Housing; Infrastructure
    • R12 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - General Regional Economics - - - Size and Spatial Distributions of Regional Economic Activity; Interregional Trade (economic geography)
    • R58 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - Regional Government Analysis - - - Regional Development Planning and Policy

    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:bos:wpaper:wp2007-22. 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: Program Coordinator (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/decbuus.html .

    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.