IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/fpr/dsgddp/44.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Comparing the evolution of spatial inequality in China and India: a fifty-year perspective

Author

Listed:
  • Gajwani, Kiran
  • Kanbur, Ravi
  • Zhang, Xiaobo

Abstract

"In the second half of the last century, both India and China have undergone major transitions and have moved to more liberalized economies. This paper relates the observed patterns in regional inequality to major events during this period. Because of China's institutional barriers to migration, regional inequality is much higher than in India. Also, China's decentralization and opening up are closely related to the observed regional inequality – particularly the inland-coastal disparity – since the reform period. From the Green Revolution age to the period of economic liberalization in India, the evolution of regional comparative advantage has shifted from the quality of land to the level of human capital as India integrates with the international market. Therefore, India's states have become clustered into two clubs: more educated and less educated ones." Authors' Abstract

Suggested Citation

  • Gajwani, Kiran & Kanbur, Ravi & Zhang, Xiaobo, 2006. "Comparing the evolution of spatial inequality in China and India: a fifty-year perspective," DSGD discussion papers 44, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).
    • Handle: RePEc:fpr:dsgddp:44
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.ifpri.org/cdmref/p15738coll2/id/35109/filename/35110.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Guanghua Wan & Zhangyue Zhou, 2005. "Income Inequality in Rural China: Regression‐based Decomposition Using Household Data," Review of Development Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 9(1), pages 107-120, February.
    2. Shorrocks, A F, 1980. "The Class of Additively Decomposable Inequality Measures," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 48(3), pages 613-625, April.
    3. Farhad Noorbakhsh, "undated". "Spatial inequality and polarisation in India," Working Papers 2004_5, Business School - Economics, University of Glasgow.
    4. Alberto Alesina & Enrico Spolaore, 1997. "On the Number and Size of Nations," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 112(4), pages 1027-1056.
    5. Krugman, Paul & Elizondo, Raul Livas, 1996. "Trade policy and the Third World metropolis," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 49(1), pages 137-150, April.
    6. Enrico Spolaore & Alberto Alesina & Romain Wacziarg, 2000. "Economic Integration and Political Disintegration," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 90(5), pages 1276-1296, December.
    7. Ravi Kanbur & Xiaobo Zhang, 2005. "Fifty Years of Regional Inequality in China: a Journey Through Central Planning, Reform, and Openness," Review of Development Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 9(1), pages 87-106, February.
    8. Liu, Zhiqiang, 2005. "Institution and inequality: the hukou system in China," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 33(1), pages 133-157, March.
    9. Eastwood, Robert & Lipton, Michael, "undated". "Rural-Urban Dimensions of Inequality Change," WIDER Working Papers 295529, United Nations University, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    10. Shorrocks, Anthony F, 1984. "Inequality Decomposition by Population Subgroups," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 52(6), pages 1369-1385, November.
    11. Fan, Shenggen & Hazell, P. B. R. & Thorat, Sukhadeo, 1998. "Government spending, growth and poverty: an analysis of interlinkages in rural India," EPTD discussion papers 33, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).
    12. Xiaobo Zhang & Kevin Honglin Zhang, 2002. "Regional Inequality," Chapters, in: Shang-Jin Wei & Guanzhong James Wen & Huizhong Zhou (ed.), The Globalization of the Chinese Economy, chapter 8, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    13. Fan, Shenggen & Kanbur, Ravi & Zhang, Xiaobo, 2008. "Regional Inequality In China: An Overview," Working Papers 51157, Cornell University, Department of Applied Economics and Management.
    14. Bardhan, Pranab & Mookherjee, Dilip, 2005. "Decentralizing antipoverty program delivery in developing countries," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 89(4), pages 675-704, April.
    15. X. Zhang & R. Kanbur, 2001. "What Difference Do Polarisation Measures Make? An Application to China," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 37(3), pages 85-98.
    16. Fan, Shenggen & Hazell, P. B. R. & Thorat, Sukhadeo, 1999. "Linkages between government spending, growth, and poverty in rural India:," Research reports 110, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).
    17. Ravallion, Martin & Chen, Shaohua, 2007. "China's (uneven) progress against poverty," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 82(1), pages 1-42, January.
    18. Martin Ravallion, 2004. "The Debate on Globalization, Poverty and Inequality: why Measurement Matters," QA - Rivista dell'Associazione Rossi-Doria, Associazione Rossi Doria, issue 1, March.
    19. Angus Deaton & Valerie Kozel, 2005. "Data and Dogma: The Great Indian Poverty Debate," The World Bank Research Observer, World Bank, vol. 20(2), pages 177-199.
    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. 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.
    2. Akramov, Kamiljon T. & Asante, Felix Ankomah, 2008. "Decentralization and local public services in Ghana: Do geography and ethnic diversity matter?," GSSP working papers 16, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).
    3. Joachim von Braun, 2014. "Urbanization and Decentralization: The changing urban-rural linkages and opportunities of decentralization of services," ERSA conference papers ersa14p841, European Regional Science Association.
    4. repec:esx:essedp:729 is not listed on IDEAS
    5. Alokesh Barua & Pavel Chakraborty, 2010. "Does Openness Affect Regional Inequality? A Case Study for India," Review of Development Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 14(s1), pages 447-465, August.

    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. Farhad Noorbakhsh & Zhikai Wang, 2010. "Interprovincial disparities in China since the reforms: convergence or divergence?," Working Papers 2010_11, Business School - Economics, University of Glasgow.
    2. Laurence J. Kotlikoff, 2007. "Staticide - America's Suicidal Healthcare Status Quo," Boston University - Department of Economics - Working Papers Series WP2007-014, Boston University - Department of Economics.
    3. Kanbur, Ravi & Zhang, Xiaobo, 2001. "Fifty Years Of Regional Inequality In China: A Journey Through Revolution, Reform And Openness," Working Papers 7236, Cornell University, Department of Applied Economics and Management.
    4. Chun-Yu Ho & Dan Li, 2009. "The nexus of income and size distribution of Chinese cities, 1984-2003," Applied Economics Letters, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 16(17), pages 1677-1682.
    5. XING, Li & FAN, Shenggen & LUO, Xiaopeng & ZHang, Xiaobo, 2009. "Community poverty and inequality in western China: A tale of three villages in Guizhou Province," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 20(2), pages 338-349, June.
    6. Roberto Ezcurra & Andr�s Rodr�guez-Pose, 2014. "Trade Openness and Spatial Inequality in Emerging Countries," Spatial Economic Analysis, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 9(2), pages 162-182, June.
    7. Ravi Kanbur & Xiaobo Zhang, 2005. "Fifty Years of Regional Inequality in China: a Journey Through Central Planning, Reform, and Openness," Review of Development Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 9(1), pages 87-106, February.
    8. Andrés Rodríguez-Pose & Roberto Ezcurra, 2010. "Does decentralization matter for regional disparities? A cross-country analysis," Journal of Economic Geography, Oxford University Press, vol. 10(5), pages 619-644, September.
    9. 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.
    10. You, Liangzhi, 2012. "A tale of two countries: Spatial and temporal patterns of rice productivity in China and Brazil," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 23(3), pages 690-703.
    11. Kanbur, Ravi & Venables, Anthony J., 2005. "SPATIAL INEQUALITY AND DEVELOPMENT Overview of UNU-WIDER Project," Working Papers 127127, Cornell University, Department of Applied Economics and Management.
    12. Li, Chao & Gibson, John, 2013. "Rising Regional Inequality in China: Fact or Artifact?," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 47(C), pages 16-29.
    13. Ezcurra, Roberto & Rodríguez-Pose, Andrés, 2013. "Does Economic Globalization affect Regional Inequality? A Cross-country Analysis," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 52(C), pages 92-103.
    14. Rui Hao & Zheng Wei, 2010. "Fundamental causes of inland–coastal income inequality in post-reform China," The Annals of Regional Science, Springer;Western Regional Science Association, vol. 45(1), pages 181-206, August.
    15. Marius Brülhart, 2011. "The spatial effects of trade openness: a survey," Review of World Economics (Weltwirtschaftliches Archiv), Springer;Institut für Weltwirtschaft (Kiel Institute for the World Economy), vol. 147(1), pages 59-83, April.
    16. Renkow, Mitch, 2010. "Impacts of IFPRI's "priorities for pro-poor public investment" global research program:," Impact assessments 31, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).
    17. Andrés Rodríguez-Pose, 2012. "Trade and Regional Inequality," Economic Geography, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 88(2), pages 109-136, April.
    18. Ying Ge, 2006. "Regional Inequality, Industry Agglomeration and Foreign Trade: The Case of China," WIDER Working Paper Series RP2006-105, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    19. John Knight, 2014. "Inequality in China: An Overview," The World Bank Research Observer, World Bank, vol. 29(1), pages 1-19.
    20. 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.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Liberalization; Liberalized economies; Regional inequality; Migration; Decentralization; Green Revolution; Economic conditions; International economic relations; Human capital; Spatial inequality;
    All these keywords.

    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:fpr:dsgddp:44. 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: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/ifprius.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.