Study On The Disparity And Convergence Of The Chang-delta District Economic Growth

After several decades of development since the economic reform implemented, the Chang-delta district has already become the highest level economics district in China as well as the place where has the most potential possibility to become better in the future, and it is the most vital district contributing to the whole economic in China. The Chang-delta district is composed by Shanghai, the center of this district, 8 cities of south of the Jiangsu Province, including Suzhou, Wuxi, Changzhou, Zhenjiang, Nanjing, Yangzhou, Taizhou, and Nantong, as well as the 7 cities of north of the Zhejiang Province, including Hangzhou, Jiaxing, Huzhou, Shaoxing, Ningbo, Zhoushan, and Taizhou. Recently, as the development of Chang-delta district, the wealth of the society and people in this place greatly enhanced as well. However, the intrinsic structure is changing, which is the disparity of different cities is becoming larger and larger. People are paying more attention on the disparity of the development of different cities, because it directly impacts the economic development and social stability of local district even the whole country. Thus, it is imperative to study the disparity in the economic development in Chang-delta district.Even though there are many papers about the disparity of Chang-delta district, but the study from the view of convergence of economic growth is scarce. Convergence of economic growth means that the decedent trend of income as the development of district or nation, which is one of the most important part of the economic growth theory. Using the model of Sala-I-Martin, based on the economic growth theory, this paper analyzes the disparity of 16 cities in Chang-delta district from the perspective of club analysis, which is new and systematic in this field.Through the analysis and research, this paper gets the following main conclusions: Firstly, the economic disparity in Chang-delta district has been enhanced as a whole and is tend to become larger in the future. Hypotheses of inverted U-shaped cannot be applied in the economic development of Chang-delta district. Secondly, this paper divides the cities of this district in a new method. The first group is composed by Shanghai, Wuxi, and Suzhou. The second group is constituted by Changzhou, Nanjing, Zhenjiang, Shaoxing, Jiaxing, Hangzhou, and Ningbo. The third group includes Yangzhou, Nantong, Taizhou, Taizhou, Huzhou, and Zhoushan. Next, by analyzing ofσ-convergence andβ-convergence in different time periods, this paper finds that from 1978 to 2007, there isσ-convergence in the whole district of Chang-delta district as well as the three group of cities; From 1978 to 1989, there are σ-convergence in the whole district of Chang-delta district as well as the first two groups of cities, however, there is insignificantσ-divergence in the third group of cities. From 1990 to 2007, there is significantσ- divergence in the whole Chang-delta district, while from 1978 to 2007, there isβ-convergence in three group of cities. Analyzing from the perspective of Chang-delta, in the time period of 1978 to 2007 and the time period of 1978 to 1989, there is significant absoluteβ-convergence in Chang-delta district, but the absoluteβ- convergence is not significant from 1990 to 2007. After adding instrument variables, there is conditionalβ-convergence in Chang-delta district from 1978 to 2007, which substantiates that the disparity among different cities are an important factor contributing to the whole disparity. Last, during the analysis of club convergence, significant club convergence exists in the first two groups of cities, but there is no club convergence in the third group of cities.