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C hinese Regions in the Great Divergence: Provincial Gross Domestic Product per Capita, 1873–1918
Author(s) -
CaruanaGalizia Paul,
Ma Ye
Publication year - 2016
Publication title -
australian economic history review
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.493
H-Index - 16
eISSN - 1467-8446
pISSN - 0004-8992
DOI - 10.1111/aehr.12064
Subject(s) - gross domestic product , divergence (linguistics) , per capita , china , differential (mechanical device) , per capita income , corporate governance , geography , economics , demographic economics , economic geography , product (mathematics) , construct (python library) , development economics , economic growth , demography , sociology , computer science , programming language , population , linguistics , philosophy , geometry , mathematics , archaeology , finance , aerospace engineering , engineering
We construct 1912/18 C hinese provincial gross domestic product per capita from primary sources and project cross‐sections for 1873 and 1893. The results fit the historical record. We hypothesise that regionally specific conflicts have a role to play in explaining differential growth rates, and that geography, governance, and sectoral structures explain relative income‐level rankings. C hina's richest provinces matched E urope's poorest. A divergence did indeed occur, but our estimates show that at a broader economic level, it was perhaps not as dramatic as some of the literature implies.