Abstract:

This paper is devoted to comprehensively analyze regional income disparities in China from 1978 to 2014. Since China began its reform and opening up, inter-provincial disparities have experienced a process of narrowing first and then expanding. But this expansive trend of inter-provincial income disparities has slowed down and began to decrease somewhat around 2000, and the income disparity between the regions has kept a narrowing trend since 2004. Using provincial economic growth data, we analyze the changes of China’s economic growth pattern since reform and opening up and investigate the main factors influencing regional economic growth and regional disparities