An Empirical Analysis on Total Factor Productivity Diversity in China's Manufacturing Industry

Based on a nonparametric Malmquist index approach,this paper has analyzed total factor productivity trend and the characters of its time sequences and space distribution,in China's manufacturing industry with provincial panel data from 1985 to 2003.The results indicate that: The average growth rate of China's manufacturing industry is mainly due to the improvement of technical progress,while the decline of productive efficiency has negative effect on the growth of TFP.There are obvious different growth rates of TFP and development of technology in manufacture industry of the east,middle and west regions.The divergence of technology development between regions is one of the important factors that cause durative regional TFP divergence.