IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/not/notgep/07-32.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Foreign direct investment and regional inequality in China

Author

Listed:
  • Kailei Wei
  • Shujie Yao
  • Aying Liu

Abstract

One downside effect of rapid economic growth in China has been the ever rising inter-regional inequality. Foreign direct investment (FDI) has been blamed for driving the Chinese regions apart. It is difficult to reconcile the positive effect of FDI on economic growth with its potential ‘negative’ effect on regional inequality. Using the largest panel dataset for the Chinese regions over 1979-2003 and employing an augmented Cobb-Douglas production function, this paper proves that FDI has been an important factor of economic growth in China. It also suggests that it is the uneven distribution of FDI instead of FDI itself that has caused regional growth differences.

Suggested Citation

  • Kailei Wei & Shujie Yao & Aying Liu, 2007. "Foreign direct investment and regional inequality in China," Discussion Papers 07/32, University of Nottingham, GEP.
    • Handle: RePEc:not:notgep:07/32
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.nottingham.ac.uk/gep/documents/papers/2007/07-32.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Chen, Jian & Fleisher, Belton M., 1996. "Regional Income Inequality and Economic Growth in China," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 22(2), pages 141-164, April.
    2. Fleisher, Belton M. & Chen, Jian, 1997. "The Coast-Noncoast Income Gap, Productivity, and Regional Economic Policy in China," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 25(2), pages 220-236, October.
    3. S. Yao & Z. Zhang, 2001. "Regional Growth in China Under Economic Reforms," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 38(2), pages 167-186.
    4. Martin Raiser, 1998. "Subsidising inequality: Economic reforms, fiscal transfers and convergence across Chinese provinces," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 34(3), pages 1-26.
    5. Dollar, David & Kraay, Aart, 2002. "Growth Is Good for the Poor," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 7(3), pages 195-225, September.
    6. Robert M. Solow, 1956. "A Contribution to the Theory of Economic Growth," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 70(1), pages 65-94.
    7. Gustafsson, Bjorn & Shi, Li, 2002. "Income inequality within and across counties in rural China 1988 and 1995," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 69(1), pages 179-204, October.
    8. Shujie Yao, 1999. "Economic growth, income inequality and poverty in china under economic reforms," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 35(6), pages 104-130.
    9. 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.
    10. Tsui, Kai-yuen, 1996. "Economic reform and interprovincial inequalities in China," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 50(2), pages 353-368, August.
    11. Jian, Tianlun & Sachs, Jeffrey D. & Warner, Andrew M., 1996. "Trends in regional inequality in China," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 7(1), pages 1-21.
    12. T. W. Swan, 1956. "ECONOMIC GROWTH and CAPITAL ACCUMULATION," The Economic Record, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 32(2), pages 334-361, November.
    13. Yuen Tsui, Kai, 1991. "China's regional inequality, 1952-1985," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 15(1), pages 1-21, March.
    14. Xiaobo Zhang & Kevin Zhang, 2003. "How Does Globalisation Affect Regional Inequality within A Developing Country? Evidence from China," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 39(4), pages 47-67.
    15. Fu, Xiaolan, 2004. "Limited linkages from growth engines and regional disparities in China," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 32(1), pages 148-164, March.
    16. Xiaming Liu & Haiyan Song & Yingqi Wei & Peter Romilly, 1997. "Country characteristics and foreign direct investment in China: A panel data analysis," Review of World Economics (Weltwirtschaftliches Archiv), Springer;Institut für Weltwirtschaft (Kiel Institute for the World Economy), vol. 133(2), pages 313-329, June.
    17. Demurger, Sylvie, 2001. "Infrastructure Development and Economic Growth: An Explanation for Regional Disparities in China?," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 29(1), pages 95-117, March.
    18. Jones, Derek C. & Li, Cheng & Owen, Ann L., 2003. "Growth and regional inequality in China during the reform era," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 14(2), pages 186-200.
    19. Yao, Shujie & Zhang, Zongyi, 2001. "On Regional Inequality and Diverging Clubs: A Case Study of Contemporary China," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 29(3), pages 466-484, September.
    20. Zheng, Fei & Xu, Li Da & Tang, Bingyong, 2000. "Forecasting regional income inequality in China," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 124(2), pages 243-254, July.
    21. Yao, Shujie & Wei, Kailei, 2007. "Economic growth in the presence of FDI: The perspective of newly industrialising economies," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 35(1), pages 211-234, March.
    22. Zhang, Zhaoyong, 2001. "Trade Liberalization, Economic Growth and Convergence: Evidence From East Asian Economies," Journal of Economic Integration, Center for Economic Integration, Sejong University, vol. 16, pages 147-164.
    23. Bao, Shuming & Chang, Gene Hsin & Sachs, Jeffrey D. & Woo, Wing Thye, 2002. "Geographic factors and China's regional development under market reforms, 1978-1998," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 13(1), pages 89-111.
    24. Baumol, William J, 1986. "Productivity Growth, Convergence, and Welfare: What the Long-run Data Show," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 76(5), pages 1072-1085, December.
    25. T. R. Lakshmanan & Chang-i Hua, 1987. "Regional Disparities in China," International Regional Science Review, , vol. 11(1), pages 97-104, April.
    26. Chang, Gene H., 2002. "The cause and cure of China's widening income disparity," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 13(4), pages 335-340, December.
    27. Gundlach, Erich, 1997. "Regional convergence of output per worker in China: A neoclassical interpretation," Open Access Publications from Kiel Institute for the World Economy 1765, Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel).
    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. Jingmei Ma & Hongyu Jia, 2015. "The Role of Foreign Direct Investment on Income Convergence in China after Early 1990s from a Spatial Econometric Perspective," Review of Development Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 19(4), pages 829-842, November.
    2. Yuqing Xing, 2008. "FDI in China: Facts and Impacts on China and the World Economy," Working Papers EMS_2008_03, Research Institute, International University of Japan.

    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. Kailei Wei & Shujie Yao & Aying Liu, 2008. "Foreign Direct Investment and Regional Inequality in China," WIDER Working Paper Series RP2008-94, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    2. Kailei Wei & Shujie Yao & Aying Liu, 2009. "Foreign Direct Investment and Regional Inequality in China," Review of Development Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 13(4), pages 778-791, November.
    3. Qinghua Zhang & Heng-fu Zou, 2012. "Regional Inequality in Contemporary China," Annals of Economics and Finance, Society for AEF, vol. 13(1), pages 113-137, May.
    4. Cheong, Tsun Se & Wu, Yanrui, 2013. "Regional disparity, transitional dynamics and convergence in China," Journal of Asian Economics, Elsevier, vol. 29(C), pages 1-14.
    5. Tsun Se Cheong & Yanrui Wu, 2013. "Globalization and Regional Inequality," Economics Discussion / Working Papers 13-10, The University of Western Australia, Department of Economics.
    6. Xubei Luo & Nong Zhu & Heng-fu Zou, 2014. "China's Lagging Region Development And Targeted Transportation Infrastructure Investments," Annals of Economics and Finance, Society for AEF, vol. 15(1), pages 157-200, May.
    7. Henderson, Daniel J. & Tochkov, Kiril & Badunenko, Oleg, 2007. "A drive up the capital coast? Contributions to post-reform growth across Chinese provinces," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 29(3), pages 569-594, September.
    8. Zhang, Zongyi & Liu, Aying & Yao, Shujie, 2001. "Convergence of China's regional incomes: 1952-1997," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 12(2-3), pages 243-258.
    9. Sylvie Démurger & Jeffrey D. Sachs & Wing Thye Woo & Shuming Bao & Gene Chang & Andrew Mellinger, 2002. "Geography, Economic Policy, and Regional Development in China," Asian Economic Papers, MIT Press, vol. 1(1), pages 146-197.
    10. Liu, Tung & Li, Kui-Wai, 2006. "Disparity in factor contributions between coastal and inner provinces in post-reform China," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 17(4), pages 449-470.
    11. Jing Li & Tsun Se Cheong & Jianfa Shen & Dahai Fu, 2019. "Urbanization And Rural–Urban Consumption Disparity: Evidence From China," The Singapore Economic Review (SER), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 64(04), pages 983-996, September.
    12. Nicolaas Groenewold & Guoping Lee & Anping Chen, 2006. "Inter-Regional Output Spillovers of Policy Shocks in China," Economics Discussion / Working Papers 06-26, The University of Western Australia, Department of Economics.
    13. Celine Bonnefond, 2014. "Growth Dynamics And Conditional Convergence Among Chinese Provinces: A Panel Data Investigation Using System Gmm Estimator," Journal of Economic Development, Chung-Ang Unviersity, Department of Economics, vol. 39(4), pages 1-25, December.
    14. Jones, Derek C. & Li, Cheng & Owen, Ann L., 2003. "Growth and regional inequality in China during the reform era," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 14(2), pages 186-200.
    15. Chi-Wei Su & Hsu-Ling Chang, 2013. "Is income converging in China?," The Economics of Transition, The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, vol. 21(2), pages 341-356, April.
    16. McErlean, Seamus & Wu, Ziping, 2003. "Regional agricultural labour productivity convergence in China," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 28(3), pages 237-252, June.
    17. Nicolaas Groenewold & Guoping Lee & Anping Chen, 2006. "Inter-Regional Output Spillovers in China: Disentangling National from Regional Shocks," Economics Discussion / Working Papers 06-25, The University of Western Australia, Department of Economics.
    18. Jeffrey Zax, 2016. "Provincial valuations of human capital in urban China, inter-regional inequality and the implicit value of a Guangdong hukou," ERSA conference papers ersa16p693, European Regional Science Association.
    19. Groenwold, Nicolaas & Lee, Guoping & Chen, Anping, 2008. "Inter-regional spillovers in China: The importance of common shocks and the definition of the regions," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 19(1), pages 32-52, March.
    20. Sai Ding & John Knight, 2011. "Why has China Grown So Fast? The Role of Physical and Human Capital Formation," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 73(2), pages 141-174, April.

    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:not:notgep:07/32. 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: Hilary Hughes (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/cgnotuk.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.