A Drive up the Capital Coast? Contributions to Post-Reform Growth Across Chinese Provinces

We use nonparametric production-frontier methods to decompose the growth of labor productivity of Chinese provinces in the post-reform period. These techniques, combined with kernel density estimates, allow us to decompose the shift in the distribution of labor productivity without the need for many assumptions common in the empirical growth literature. We find that (1) the distribution of output per worker across Chinese provinces is multimodal, (2) technological change is decidedly nonneutral, (3) physical capital accumulation has been the major driving force behind the growth performance of Chinese provinces and (4) it attempts to drive convergence between provinces, but (5) minimal technological progress and human capital accumulation are key factors responsible for the regional disparities in China.

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