COMPARATIVE ADVANTAGE, SCALE ECONOMY AND REGIONAL SPECIALIZATION: AN EMPIRICAL ANALYSIS ON CHINA’S INDUSTRIES

ABSTRACT. Current empirical studies on regional specialization mainly focused on measurement of China’s overall regional specialization level, while determinants of industrial geographical distribution, namely the regional specialization pattern, are just paid few attentions. This paper analyzed the regional specialization pattern empirically by employing statistical data of China two-digit industries from 1987 to 2007 through estimating a model which takes comparative advantage and scale economy as driven factors of industrial geographical concentration. Conclusions show that the overall regional specialization of Chinese industries increased between 1987 and 2007, however, it decreased obviously in 1990s. And, scale economy rather than comparative advantage arising from production cost is a long-run factor of China’s industrial geographical distribution