Regional disparities in China's manufacturing industry from 1987 to 2003

China's regional disparities are greatly discussed by academe, but there is limited attention on disparities in manufacturing industry, which plays a key role in the national economy. This paper uses the Gini Coefficient, Theil entropy index and the decomposition of Theil entropy index, to investigate regional disparities in manufacturing industry among provinces, between northern and southern China, among eastern, central and western China. The results indicate that, the disparity trend among provinces has been slowly increasing; the disparities among the eastern, central and western regions waved during the last few years, and the major source is the disparities between the three parts, the disparities within each region are small and decreasing; disparities are increasing for the North and the South, and the major source comes from the disparities within the South.