| Most countries attach much importance to regional disparities because too big disparity not only challenges economic sustainable development but also does harm on social harmony and stabilization. The report of the CPC’s18th National Congress mentions the goal of "sustained and sound economic development", and we should "fully leverage the comparative advantages of different regions and promote balanced development between regions and advancing urbanization." And so, it is very important and practically significant to research the regional disparities in circulation industry and the formation mechanism of the great imbalance and come up with strategies to promote balanced development of circulation industry in different regions, not only for enriching the study on the circulation industry but also for narrowing the economic gap between regions and promoting sustained and sound development of China’s economy.The study on the regional disparity in the development of the circulation industry includes three aspects:(1) the measurement to the disparities;(2) the reasons for the disparities;(3) the evolution and countermeasures of the disparities. Based on the quantitative measurement of the regional disparities in the circulation industry, this paper empirically analyzes the regional disparities of the circulation industry in China from1997to2011, deeply analyzes the main reasons of the existed disparities, and put forward some policy recommendations to narrow the regional disparities and promote the harmonious development of the circulation industry. Compared with the other research, the contribution for this paper is showed as follow: Firstly, this paper analyzed the evolution of labor division, factor inputs, technological innovation, demand factors, institutional policies and international factors for the mechanism of the development of circulation industry through establishing influencing factors model of circulation industry development. The paper also attempted to reveal fundamental reason which leading to the regional imbalance of China’s circulation industry is that differences of the contribution of each factor.Secondly, the paper constructs a measurement model of circulation industry development level, and designs the measurement method based on Group AHP-Factor Analysis. Then, the paper estimates the circulation industry development composite index of31provinces (municipalities, autonomous regions) by applying the statistical data from1997to2011. Based on this, the paper makes the horizontal and vertical comparison among the provinces.Thirdly, this paper uses three complementary differential indexes, which are Gini coefficient, Mean logarithmic deviation (GE0) and Theil index (GE1), to measure and reveal the regional disparity state of the circulation industry development in China from1997to2011based on "2-dimensional prospective" of provinces and the eastern, middle and western regions. It is found that, the regional disparities of provincial circulation industry development shows a flat-bottomed U-type characteristic, while the disparities of the circulation industry development in eastern, middle, and western regions has a higher proportion in the total disparity.Fourthly, this study decomposes the disparities of provincial circulation industry development and the circulation industry development disparities in eastern, middle and western regions in China using Shapley value decomposition method. It is found that regional inherent factors, urbanization level, industrialization level, opening degree etc. are the main factors causing the regional disparities of circulation industry development.Fifthly, referring to the economic convergence theory in development economics, this study empirically verifies the convergence of the regional disparities in circulation industry development in China usingσ convergence, β convergence and club convergence test model. The result showed that China’s circulation industry did not presentσ convergence from1997to2011, but it exhibited β conditional convergence in these years and club convergence in middle and western area in part of the years. Basing on this result, the development trend of the regional disparities of circulation industry in China is obtained.Finally, starting from reducing the disparities in regional circulation infrastructures, circulation development condition, urbanization level, industrialization level, and education level, this study puts forward countermeasures and suggestions to regulate and control the disparities in China’s circulation industrial development according to the theoretical and empirical analysis above, the development course and overall characteristics of China’s circulation industry since the foundation of new China, and advanced foreign experiences. |
