Regional Policy, Spatial Polarization and Inequality in China, 1982-1990

长期以来，各国政府一直在努力解决如何在制定和实施经济发展政策时处理地区之间差异的问题。虽然促进各区域之间发展平等的总目标往往是为了改善一个国家所有居民的福利，但各区域之间人力和自然资源以及地理情况的差异要求制定和执行不同的发展政策。近几十年来，这些不同的区域发展方式之间的冲突在中华人民共和国表现得非常明显。​​这个项目将通过建立和分析一个载有1982年和1990年中国所有县的人口和社会经济数据的数据库来调查区域发展政策转变的动态和影响。在分析中将特别注意评估中国的空间极化程度，衡量不同区域之间的空间不平等程度和不平等水平的变化，并确定解释这些变化的因素。这个项目将在许多方面促成新的认识。人口和社会经济数据库将为探索中国不同地区经济发展差异及相关因素提供前所未有的机会。这些分析将对不同区域发展政策的空间影响，特别是差别政策在多大程度上助长不平等发展水平提供新的见解。这些见解不仅对那些对当前中国经济政策的动态和影响感兴趣的人有用，而且还将增强对其他地区发展政策和实践的空间影响的更一般的理解。

National governments long have wrestled with issues of how to deal with differences among regions in the formulation and implementation of economic development policies. While the general goal of promoting equality in development among various regions often is promoted in order to improve the wellbeing of all residents of a nation, differences in the human and natural resources and in the geographic situations among regions argue for differential development policies to be developed and implemented. The conflicts between these different approaches to regional development have been apparent in the People's Republic of China in recent decades. Under the leadership of Mao Zedong, development policies favored regional equity in hopes that poorer inland provinces would "catch up" with wealthier eastern coastal provinces. Regional policies under Deng Xiaoping have emphasized regional specialization and division of labor, however, with export-oriented industrialization and trade in the east generating more rapid development than agricultural and energy- related activities in central provinces and animal husbandry and mineral-related activities to the west. This project will investigate the dynamics and implications of the shift in regional development policies through construction and analysis of a database containing demographic and socio-economic data for all counties in China in 1982 and 1990. Special attention will be given in the analyses to assessing the extent of spatial polarization in China, to measuring the degree of spatial inequality among different regions and changes in levels of inequality, and to identifying factors that explain those variations. This project will contribute to new understandings in a number of ways. The demographic and socio-economic database will provide unprecedented opportunities to explore differences in economic development and related factors across different parts of China over time. The analyses will provide new insights into the spatial implications of different regional development policies, especially the degree to which differential policies foster unequal levels of development. Not only will these insights be useful for those interested in the dynamics and implications of current Chinese economic policies, they also will enhance more general understandings of the spatial implications of development policies and practices in other locales.