Geography, Ethnicity and Regional Inequality in Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, China

This paper analyzes regional inequality in Western China through a case study of Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region from 1989 to 2012. We have found a recent trend of increasing county-level inequality, in which the distribution of regional inequality has changed from a single peak to a bimodal pattern. Based on the multi-mechanism framework, we have revealed that geographic environment and ethnic characteristics have had a large impact on the economic development of Guangxi. Spatiality, investment and industrialization play an additional important role in regional development; meanwhile, globalization and decentralization play a minor role. Building on the semiparametric geoadditive models, our investigation detects nonlinear relationships between geography, ethnicity and local development. We then assess the relative performance of infrastructure and market potential to control for unobserved spatial heterogeneity.