Resumen de Regional specialization: new methods of measurement and the trends in China 1987-2007
This paper elaborates on a method of measuring regional specialization and examines the regional specialization trends in China, 1987 - 2007. It constructs a coefficient incorporating the effects of regional industrial scale based on location quotients, and then measures China’s regional specialization using official statistical data. The results indicate a remarkable increase in China’s overall regional specialization during this time, as well as obvious regional and industrial differences, i.e., that the regional specialization of China’s eastern coast is relatively less than that of areas further inland. Findings further demonstrate that special-resource-dependent industries are concentrated in regions with resource endowment, whereas industries with strong technical barriers are located in regions possessing strong research and innovation resources
