Regional convergence or divergence in China? Evidence from unit root tests with breaks

The validity of regional economic clubs requires that two conditions be met. First, per capita output between clubs diverges so that the poor region can hardly catch up with the rich one. Second, per capita outputs within each club converge to similar steady states. This paper applies unit root tests with endogenously determined structural breaks to demonstrate the existence of regional economic clubs among the Chinese provinces, based on a panel data set of real per capita GDP for 28 provincial units in China from 1953 to 2007. Our results show that regional economic clubs do exist in the Chinese case, thus reflecting the problem of regional growth divergence in China's economic development.