Spatial Econometric Analysis In The Influence Of Labor Flow On Regional Difference Of China

In the more than twenty years since the reform and open, China has achieved great development in economy. However, what has been companied with the rapid economical growth is the dramatic increase of regional differences. This difference is especially evident when comparing the economy between the southeastern districts and other parts of China. When this situation continues, two main problems will come as a consequence. The first is that the market space of the southeastern coastland will be constrained, although the advantage of its water transport will help exploring the opportunities from overseas. The second problem is that when poor districts remained undeveloped, the benefit conflicts and other contradictions between different areas will be caused. Therefore, regional difference is becoming an important research subject with great practical values.The economical increase also leads to the extension of labor flow. In 2004, there were 8 .5 million of the population around the country who were involved in labor flow. The regions where labor flows are quite different in distribution. The major part of the labor flows to the eastern coastland, while the middle and the western districts are mostly labor-export areas. This will make a great impact on the regional economy development, including both the labor import and export regions. Besides, the income change and the extension/diminishing of the regional difference of the districts will also be influenced. Therefore, for regional economy theory and practice researches, it is essential find out how the influence is working.There are two opposing opinions among researchers. The first is that the labor flow can accelerate the economy of the import and export regions, thus reducing their differences. On the contrary, the other is that the regional difference will be aggravated due to the flow of labor between different areas. This dissertation was set in this background. It took a full consideration of the space dependence of the economy development between different areas. A spatial econometric model was set up, and the empirical analysis method was introduced for analyzing the panel data of China provincial economic growth. The result showed that the labor flow in our country behaved differently in influencing the regional economic growth. The reason was that for the flow of labor, its working direction and intention in different areas were distinguished from each other. Additionally, the impact it caused respectively for labor import and export areas was never the same.The import of labor contributes to the economic growth of the eastern areas much more than the middle and western parts. As a result, regional difference will be aggravated in this circumstance. However, the labor export is essentially beneficial for both the eastern and western regions. Therefore, the difference will be diminished. As for nowadays in China, obstacles still exist both in the regulations of labor flow and in the human resource. The leading result of this will be that the force of reducing the regional difference through labor export is not resistant to the more powerful force of extending the difference through labor import. Thus, the regional difference will generally be aggravated.