Book Chapter
Spatial Convergence in China

The purpose of this paper is to examine the convergence process in China by taking into account the spatial interaction between factors. The paper shows that there has been a dramatic increase in the spatial dependence of China’s per capita GDP in the last 20 years. The consequence of space plays an important role, which is reflected in the influence of a neighbour’s condition on the mobility of a province’s income distribution from one category to another. The dynamics of the process showed evidence that China’s distribution has gone from one of convergence to stratification, and from stratification to polarization.