The Convergence of Industrial Structure in Chinese Western Provinces: Measurement and Explanation——Theoretical Analysis and Empirical Test Based on the SIP Framework

The SIP framework for analyzing the evolving mechanism of industrial structure of less developing regions is constructed in this paper,and measurement indicators of convergence of industrial structure of a province are configurated,meanwhile we use panel data including 35 industries of 12 western provinces from 2000 to 2010 to estimate and test empirically.Evidences show that the convergence indices of industrial structure of western China increased obviously instead of decreasing,and the main driver is of physical captial investment,which is a necessary compementarity to the popular viewpoint that capital investment promotes the economic growth of western China.Another underlying reason is the dysfunction of the transmission mechanism of project-industry-structure,which results in the missing industrial basic system without growing project and the structural embedded trap,and hurts the efficiency of industrial structural change in western China.Besides,we also find the double edge effect of openning-up: one is the increasement of convergence of industrial structure,the other is advance the contribution of technological progress to decrease the convergence of industrial structure.And,the development of financial service,transportation and technological progress helps to reduce the convergence level of indusrial structure,while human capital investment,stage of industrialization and innovation of system contribute little.