STUDY ON THE CONCENTRATION AND DISPERSION OF CHINA'S MANUFACTURING AT PROVINCIAL LEVEL
利用1980-2000年26个制造业行业增加值数据，计算区位基尼系数，发现1990年代制造业地理集中度上升，并分析了自然资源、资本技术密集度及政策对产业分布的影响。
The study of geographical concentration of manufacturing industries is one of the most important research topics in economic/industry geography. With different data and methods, many geographers and economists abroad have made a lot of studies in this field and conclude some valuable empirical results, taking American and some European Union countries as study units. But is the geographical distribution of each manufacturing industry in China getting more or less concentrated since its opening up and reform? How to give a rational explanation to the spatial distribution trend of each industry? There are little studies to these questions at present, whether in China's academia or abroad.With the value-added data of China's manufacturing since the year 1980 to 2000, this paper empirically examines variations and changes of provincial distribution of China's manufacturing for a sample of 26 industries by calculating each sector's locational Gini coefficient. And then, we make a qualitative explanation to the spatial distribution condition of China's manufacturing. The main findings are as follows:① The average geographical concentration of China's manufacturing has increased during the 1990s. From the 1980s to the 1990s, of the 26 industrial sectors, 9 out of 12 dispersed sectors become convergent, 5 out of 9 concentrated sectors are getting intensified and the other 5 sectors change from spread to relatively or comparatively concentrated;② Factor endowments are important determinants of patterns of specialization. The strongest activity concentration is found for tobaccos, timber processing, can and palm fiber, petroleum refining and coking, ferrous metal smelting and pressing, non-ferrous metal smelting and pressing, sectors for which proximity of natural resources is essential;③ Capital/technology-intensive industries and those industrial sectors that FDI is mainly concentrated are highly localized, such as electronics and telecommunication equipment, instruments and meters;④ The national political strategies and local government industry policies have played an important role in China's industry development and its production location choice.