Development Strategies and Regional Income Disparities in China

economic development strategy, regional income disparities, viability, China, economy

Economic Development Strategy, Openness and Rural Poverty: A Framework and China's Experiences

economic development strategy, income distribution, globalization, poverty

Development Strategies and Regional Income Disparities in China

Since the economic reforms began in 1978, China has achieved remarkable economic results. Real GDP per capita grew at an average annual rate of 8.1% in the period of 1978-2001. Maintaining such a high growth rate over such a long period of time with a population of more than one billion truly is a miracle in world economy history (Lin et. al. 1994 and 1999).China, Regional income disparities, Income Distribution

Economic development strategy, openness and rural poverty: A framework and China's experiences

This paper argues that both openness and poverty in a country are endogenously determined by the country’s long-term economic development strategy. Development strategies can be broadly divided into two mutually exclusive groups: (i) the comparative advantage-defying (CAD) strategy, which attempts to encourage firms to deviate from the economy’s existing comparative advantages in their entry into an industry or choice of technology; and (ii) the comparative advantage-following (CAF) strategy, which attempts to facilitate the firms’ entry into an industry or choice of technology according to the economy’s existing comparative advantages. To carry out a CAD strategy, many governments of LDCs subsidize the firms in priority sectors by distorting capital prices, foreign exchange, and other inputs; and use administrative methods to allocate price-distorted inputs to the firms. The functions of market will be suppressed. Rent-seeking will be widespread. As a result, economic performance will be poor and the income distribution issue will worsen. Foreign trade will also be retarded. Only if governments of less-developed countries make following their economy’s comparative advantage the basic principle for promoting the economy’s industrial development, will the economy have an open and well functioning market, maintain a high rate of capital accumulation, upgrade its endowment structure quickly, and see a more equitable distribution of income and fewer poor