China's inter-provincial disparities - An explanation

China's inter-provincial output and livelihood disparities moved in different directions in the pre-reform and the reform periods. This paper sets out to identify the driving forces behind these developments. It suggests that in the transition to a market system, China has succeeded in narrowing inter-provincial output disparities by pursuing outward-looking and de-nationalisation oriented industrialisation, but has failed to prevent a widening of inter-provincial livelihood disparities owing to the weakening of government intervention in the form of regional income redistribution. (C) 1999 The Regents of the University of California. Published by Elsevier Science Ltd, All rights reserved.