A Research on the Fiscal Regional Difference of China’s Prefecture-Level Administrative Regions

Abstract

As a centralized state power, China intervenes in local economy through effective fiscal and administrative measures. Local finances play a significant role in Chinese governmental activities, providing financial support in various fields, such as infrastructure, education and culture. Local finance is also a mirror of local economics. Local fiscal revenues and economic conditions influence each other, interacting as both cause and effect. Some experts in geoeconomics have studied regional economic disparities through spatial variations of GDP. This paper, however, considers it more profound and multilevel to study the development of local economy from the perspective of fiscal revenues in the context of Chinese governmental interventions. This paper originally offers specific and concrete details of local fiscal revenues by calculating differences of spatial distribution of nominal and disposal fiscal revenues, providing new explanations for the controversial issue on whether regional economic disparities are expanding or not.