Economic Growth and Regional Income Inequality: The Case of Asian Economies

本研究探讨东亚国家的地区收入不平等。自20世纪80年代中期以来，关于趋同假说的实证研究如雨后春笋般涌现。趋同假说认为，穷国在人均收入水平上往往会赶上富国。许多实证研究使用跨国数据来检验这一假设，并找到了支持这一假设的证据，尽管它们通常在“趋同”之前加上“有条件的”这一修饰语。“有条件趋同意味着，只要穷国具有类似的经济特征，如人力资本水平，它们的人均收入水平往往会赶上富国。东亚经济体似乎是穷国赶上富国的好例子。这种现象在国内各地区是否相同？如果市场机制的内在功能是改善空间单元之间的收入差距，那么地区收入差距也应该消失。由于一个国家内部的区域比不同国家的区域具有更相似的特征，我们不应在趋同之前加上“有条件”这一修饰语。然而，关于东亚经济区域趋同的研究却很少。第一，只有韩国（1988-1996）表现出区域趋同的趋势。另一个时期，韩国和其他国家没有表现出任何收敛。第二，除韩国1988- 1996年外，各国首都圈与其他地区之间的差距持续存在。这些结果表明，市场机制并没有内在的功能，以改善空间单元之间的收入差距。

This research examines regional income inequalities in the East Asian countries. Empirical studies on the convergence hypothesis have mushroomed since the mid-1980s. The convergence hypothesis proposes that poor countries tend to catch up with rich ones in terms of the level of per capita income. Many empirical studies examine the hypothesis using cross-country data and find support for it, although they generally add the qualifier "conditional" before "convergence." Conditional convergence means that poor countries tend to catch up with rich ones in terms of the level of per capita income as long as they have similar economic characteristics, such as the level of human capital.East Asian economies seem to represent good examples of poorer countries catching up with richer countries. Is this phenomenon the same among regions within the countries? If market mechanisms intrinsically function to improve income disparities among spatial units, regional income disparities also ought to disappear. Since regions within a country have characteristics more similar than those of different countries we should not add the qualifier "conditional" before convergence. There are, however, quite few studies on regional convergence in East Asian economies.Major results of the analysis are as follows. First, only Korea (1988-1996) shows thd tendency of regional convergence. The other period for Korea and other countries show no convergence at all. Second, disparity between the capital region and other regions in every country persists, except in Korea for 1988-1996.The above points provide important evidence against the convergence hypothesis. These results suggest that market mechanisms do not intrinsically function to improve income disparities among spatial units.