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The Annals of Regional Science
Published in: The Annals of Regional Science 2/2017

10-07-2017 | Original Paper

Is spatial distribution of China’s population excessively unequal? A cross-country comparison

Author: Kyung-Min Nam

Published in: The Annals of Regional Science | Issue 2/2017

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Abstract

This study explores whether China’s population distribution is excessively biased toward large cities or coastal regions. The test is based on a fixed effects model estimated from a 5-year panel dataset for 101 countries, and two spatial inequality measures are computed from \(0.25^{\circ }\times 0.25^{\circ }\) population grids for a parallel cross-country comparison. The results show that the spatial Gini coefficient for China does not deviate from a general trend, while Moran’s I index is biased upward. This suggests that the spatial inequality of China’s population distribution tends to be more obvious at the regional level than at the city level.
previous article One country, two “urban” systems: focusing on bimodality in China’s city-size distribution
next article Urban wage inequality and economic agglomeration

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Appendix
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Metadata
Title
Is spatial distribution of China’s population excessively unequal? A cross-country comparison
Author
Kyung-Min Nam
Publication date
10-07-2017
Publisher
Springer Berlin Heidelberg
Published in
The Annals of Regional Science / Issue 2/2017
Print ISSN: 0570-1864
Electronic ISSN: 1432-0592
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1007/s00168-017-0839-0

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