A Regional Comparative Study On Chinese Dual-Economic Transition

After an average of nearly 10% of sustained high economic growth for more than 30 years, China has already become the world’s second largest economy in economic aggregate and has entered the critical period of stepping over the middle income trap. The dual-economic structure transition practices of Japan and South Korea are often used to compared with China, and China has learned from them. The transition issue in China is more complicated than that of Japan and South Korea, as a result of the large land area, a complex country and various regional free-running transitions. Step-wise progressive transformation across three regions can either bring opportunities for the inter-regional flows of resource and industrial transfer between regions, or constrain overall economic development for the lag of transition backward area.The issue of dual-economic transition has never been a simple rural issue,but a coordination issue of relationship between industry and agriculture,urban and rural,in relation to upgrade of industrial structure, economic agglomerations of urban,and national economic development.In China,the process of dual economic transition falls behind that of industrialization, the course of urbanization lags behind that of industrialization, and the speed of employment structure transformation is slower than that of industrial structure transformation. Three regions reflect all of them in different degree. Urban-rural differences and regions differences in our country are caused by institutions, so they must be studied by the method of political economy. The thesis studies the stage, intensity and cause to differences of transition from point of view of regional comparison systematically, innovates theoretical framework and measure index, combines classic dual-economy theory and new economic geography. The research has a positive theoretical and practical significance on balancing regional development, urban-rural integration and success of dual-economic transition.The dissertation is organized by introduction and main body as follows:The first chapter is introduction. It describes the backgrounds and significance. Literature is reviewed about classic dual-economy theory and research status of regional comparative studies on Chinese dual-economic transition.The main research method is explained,and the structure and main content of the thesis is introduced.It also points out the dissertation’s innovations and deficiencies.The second chapter is theoretical basis of a regional comparative study on Chinese dual-economic transition.Primarily,it is clarified about the productive and constitutional connotations of dual-economic transition,the industrial and spatial connotations of that.It is essential that proceeding with industrialization, agricultural modernization and urbanization to achieve the integration of urban and rural areas.According to Fei-Ranis Model’division of three stages of dual-economy transition,the chapter discusses the internal consistency of Lewis turning interval, middle-later stage of industrialization and Kuznets turning point.After that, Introducing new economic geography explains the dual-economic transition’s gaps between regions.Labor mobility between urban-rural areas and between regions,is both the core issue of regional comparison on Chinese dual economy, also the junction of dual-economy transition theory and regional development theory. At last, Chinese territory is divided into three parts as the comparative regions, that are the east, the middle and the west respectively.The third chapter is a regional comparison in transition stage of Chinese dual-economy. The judgment criteria and methods of Lewis turning point, industrialization stage and Kuznets turning point is discussed, which is applied to analyzing dual economy transition phases of Chinese three regions.China, the east and the middle have entered the Lewis turning interval, while the west has not reached the shortage point. For nearly a decade, the processes of each region’s industrialization show that the nation and the mideast part of China have crossed into new industrialization phases individually. Especially, the east’s industrialization has been almost completed, and gotten in post-industrial stage.However, the west’s industrialization process advanced slowly, and it has been in the early-middle periods of industrialization. Kuznets turning point has appeared in the nation and the mideast part of China. This chapter demonstrates the conclusion that Lewis turning point, industrialization stage and Kuznets turning point should appear in the same period by experiences in China and its three regions.The fourth chapter is a regional comparison in Chinese dual-economic intensity. Dual comparison coefficient and dual contrast index are used commonly to measure binary economic in previous studies. But they have limitations in regional comparative studies. Therefore, this chapter builds a bran-new dual-economic intensity index, which clearly reflects the transformation disparities of China’s three major regions. Economic duality increases step by step from the east to the middle then to the west.The west’s transition is seriously lagging behind, which constraints the overall transition of China. Through regional comparison of synthesis elements indicators, regional differences are reflected in industrial meaning and spatial meaning of binary economic industrial transformation. Using dual-economic intensity index’s coefficient of variation and transition’s convergence test methods to inspect the areas’transition gaps, it is found that changes of China’s regional transition difference is consistent with the institutional changes, and the latter improved or expanded transition gaps. The three parts of China do not have the convergence of transition, and the midwest’s transition evolves no faster than the east’s transition. After entering the Lewis turning interval, binary economic intensity will be greatly reduced, and the status of dual-economic structure is improved fundamentally.The fifth chapter is the causes of regional differences in Chinese dual-economic transition.This chapter analyzes the cause of Chinese dual-economy transition’s regional differences in three aspects of the initial dual economic restructuring’s conditions, productivity and production relations. In the original position of transition, the west China is at a disadvantage, and the midland of China takes second place to it. At the same time, Eastern China owns favorable initial conditions of transformation. Causes of productivity levels can be gone into from two perspectives as intra-regional and inter-regional, which is reflected in labor mobility, industrial drive, agriculture modernization,urban economic agglomerations and so on. Causes of production relations levels can be studied from two angles of space and time. With spatial perspective, China’s institution changed with a progressive space from east to west, which led economic duality to increase stepwise from east to west. In terms of time, institutional transition of coordinating urban-rural development and harmonizing regional development that carried by the central government will widen or narrow the dual-economy transition’s gaps between regions.The last chapter is conclusions and implications. On the basis of the previous text’s comparison, three conclusions of this research is drawn. Conclusion 1:It is the initial conditions of transition and economic agglomerations that determines the direction of labor’s migration. Moreover, labor mobility and other factors of production’ gathering driven by it, result in three regions’different phases of transition and disparate binary economic structural strength. Conclusion 2:In China, the changes of dual-economy transition differences between regions,the processes of dual economic structure transformation and institutional change are roughly synchronous. The institutional changes which progress step by step spatially affect differences of regional transition. Conclusion 3:The interests structure behind the regional transitions is constituted by the central and local governments together. The central government’s incentives for local governments is likely to cause the gaps of dual-economic transition between regions, but it is difficult to narrow and make up for the gaps. At last, six implications are proposed to coordinate regional dual-economic transition, and promote Chinese binary economic transformation successfully.