Comparative Advantage, Scale Economy and Regional Specialization：An Empirical Analysis Based on China’s Industries

Lu, Zheng and Deng, Xiang (2012): Comparative Advantage, Scale Economy and Regional Specialization：An Empirical Analysis Based on China’s Industries.

Abstract

Current empirical studies on regional specialization mainly focused on measurement of China’s overall regional specialization level, while determinants of industrial geographical distribution, namely the regional specialization pattern, are just paid few attentions. This paper analyzed the regional specialization pattern empirically by employing statistical data of China two-digit industries from 1987 to 2007 through estimating a model which takes comparative advantage and scale economy as driven factors of industrial geographical concentration. Conclusions show that the overall regional specialization of Chinese industries increased between 1987 and 2007, however, it decreased obviously in 1990s. And, scale economy rather than comparative advantage arising from production cost is a long-run factor of China’s industrial geographical distribution.

• Item Type: MPRA Paper
• Language: English
• Keywords: Comparative Advantage Scale Economy Regional Specialization China
• Subjects: R - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics > R3 - Real Estate Markets, Spatial Production Analysis, and Firm Location > R30 - General; R - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics > R1 - General Regional Economics > R12 - Size and Spatial Distributions of Regional Economic Activity

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