地区发展差距的衡量与缩小的路径 第6页
As discussed in the previous section, the GE index is sub-grouped additively decomposable, allowing us to look deeper into the make-up of inequality. The 56 data points in each year from which the overall distribution is constructed, a rural and an urban observation for each of 28 provinces, can be divided into rural and urban observations across the provinces and, using equation (2) the GE can be decomposed into a “within rural-urban” and a “between rural- urban” component (we will call it rural-urban inequality). The overall GE and the between rural- urban component are shown in Table 2. The within rural-urban component is the difference of the above two.
A key dimension of inequality in China, especially in the post-reform period, is that between inland and coastal provinces (Tsui, 1993; Chen and Fleisher, 1996; Yao 1997; and Zhang and Kanbur, 2001). We follow the practice of classifying the provinces of Beijing, Liaoning, Tianjin, Hebei, Shandong, Jiangsu, Shanghai, Zhejang, Fujian, Guangdong and Guangxi as coastal and the other provinces as inland. We therefore divide our 56 observations into 22 coastal and 34 inland observations and decompose the GE measure accordingly. The “between inland-coastal” component (we will call it inland-coastal inequality thereafter) is reported in Table 2.
Figures 3-5 go a long way in translating the above narrative into impacts on overall inequality and the rural-urban and inland-costal inequalities, and provide some initial hypotheses for econometric testing in the next section. Under the central planning system, the central government had large powers to allocate and utilize financial revenues to achieve the goal of equity despite at the expense of efficiency. With economic reforms, the central government has granted local governments more autonomy in allocating their resources and bearing more responsibilities (Ma, 1997; Lin, Liu and Zhong, 1997; Qian and Roland, 1998). Figure 3 shows that in general the share of local government expenditure has increased in the reform period, although there are some blips as the government reassessed its priorities periodically. With the new fiscal structure, local governments have more incentive to promote economic growth. However, because of differences in historical development level and geographical locations, the rate of growth may differ across regions. Under fiscal decentralization, regions with agriculture as the major means of production must rely more on the extraction of levies and compulsory apportionment, which hinder local economic growth. Regions with more diverse economic structure and larger revenue base have a larger degree of freedom to finance their economic development (Zhang et al., 2003). Not surprisingly, as shown in Figure 3, inequality moved closely in tandem with decentralization

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