In this paper we propose that a flawed development strategy is responsible for the increasing disparities in economic development among provinces in China. Since the founding of the PRC, the government has pushed a "leap forward" strategy emphasizing the development of capital-intensive heavy industries. In most provinces, however, the priority industries under this strategy were inconsistent with the comparitive advantage determined by the factor endowments in those provinces. Many enterprises in the priority industries were not viable in the competitive market and required interventions in the merkets by the government to support and protect them. Consequently, this leap-forward strategy retarded the functions of market, impeded capital accumulation and hindered technology and productivity progress in the provinces. The provinces in the central and western provinces continue to follow the leap-forward strategy and have poor growth performance Therefore, it is imperitive to replace tha comparitive advantage-defying leap-forward strategy with a comparative advantage-following strategy and restructure the existing industries in each province according to the princple of comparitive advantage. This latter strategy would enhance coordinated development among regions and provinces and, in effect, work more effectively to create sustainable national economic development. The regional effects of economic strategies in China are the subject of this paper.
Download Info
To download:
If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the
proper application to
view it first. Information about this may be contained
in the File-Format links below. In case of further problems read
the IDEAS help
page. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS
site. Please be patient as the files may be large.
Length: 33 pages Date of creation: Nov 2005 Date of revision: Handle: RePEc:eab:develo:656
Contact details of provider: Postal: JG Crawford Building #13, Asia Pacific School of Economics and Government, Australian National University, ACT 0200 Web page: http://www.eaber.org More information through EDIRC
For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its listing, contact: (Sam Engele).
References listed on IDEAS Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
Barro, Robert J & Sala-i-Martin, Xavier, 1992.
"Convergence,"
Journal of Political Economy,
University of Chicago Press, vol. 100(2), pages 223-51, April.
[Downloadable!] (restricted)
Other versions: