Chinese interprovincial income disparity via regional mobility dynamics

The growth paths in China diverge widely between the rich coastal and poor inland provinces. As a result, the impact of institutional effects on reducing provincial disparity in terms of the “Go West” policies implemented in the early-2000s appears to be based on the biased cultural attitudes of elites. In this study, the provincial disparity is studied from the perspective of regional mobility dynamics from 1993 to 2016 employing the X-convergence technique. With regards to findings, the study reveals the predominance of divergence among thirty-one provinces from 1993 until 2005 and convergence during 2005–2014. However, within the low-income group of provinces, the convergence started predominating after 2008. This suggests that some of the poorest of the poor provinces began to grow faster to catch up with the rest only from 2008, and therefore, the decline in regional disparity truly happened from 2008 which could be the result of “Go West” policy implementation in the early-2000s. Another important finding of this study is the prevalence of persistence between the income groups indicating rich provinces remain rich and poor remain poor. The implications of this study are particularly important for regional decision making in planning for economic cohesion