The European Journal of Comparative Economics

Vol. 6, n.1, pp. 57-99

ISSN 1722-4667



Available online at http://eaces.liuc.it
57
Comparing China and India:
Is the dividend of economic reforms polarized?
Sudip Ranjan Basu
1

2

Abstract
The paper compares the economic performance of China and India during the period of their ongoing
reform policies. It develops a new measure of development, namely, a development quality index (DQI),
to compare performance of China and India. The results show that national-level development quality
grew three times faster in China than in India. Conversely, the health quality index grew three times as fast
in India than China over the period 1980-2004, narrowing the gap in outcomes. The overall regional
development quality level improved in both countries, but polarization widened in China. The direction
of overall inter-regional polarization in China indicates a rising concentration of development gains from
economic reform policies. The inter-regional economic polarization in recent years is more pronounced in
India.
JEL Classification Numbers: C43, D63, O18
Key Words: Development, Inequality, Polarization, China, India
1. Introduction
This is a comparative study of China and India, two of the most populous
countries of the world, and which combine to constitute nearly one-third of the worlds
population. Both India and China have undertaken fairly extensive economic reform
policies during the past two decades.
Since the adoption of economic reform policies in 1978, Chinas economic
growth performance has been truly dramatic. Similarly, in terms of social progress,
welfare and poverty reduction, Chinese performance has been quite remarkable in the
last two decades. On the other hand, in India, the second most populous country and
largest democracy in the world, growth performance since the initiation of economic

1
I would like to express my sincere thanks to Lawrence R. Klein, John Cuddy, A.L. Nagar, M. Muqtada,
Shenggen Fan, Xiaobo Zhang, Pranab Bardhan, Meghnad Desai, Lakshmi Puri, Khalil Rahman, Victor
Ognivstev, Clive Granger, Jim ONeill, Richard Baldwin, Sean Dougherty, Vittorio Valli, Rashmi Banga
and Chandan Bose and two anonymous referees for their insightful comments during preparation of
this paper. Comments from the seminar participants at the 10th bi-annual EACES conference at the
Moscow Higher School of Economics, and at the research workshops at Paris School of Economics
and UNCTAD-India office in New Delhi are also acknowledged. Thanks are also due to Gayatrika
Gupta. The views expressed in this paper are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the
views of the United Nations Secretariat or its members. Any mistakes or errors remain the authors'
own. E-mail: [email protected], Tel: +41 22 917 55 53, Fax: +41 22 917 00 44
2
United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD)

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58
reform policies in 1991 has been relatively modest, falling behind on many fronts
relative to the Chinese performance indicators. Figure 1 shows trends over the past
decade of Chinas GDP per capita vis--vis Indias, where the improvement has been
much less fast.
3
It is evident that until the 1990s, GDP per capita (PPP international
dollars) in China and India was at very similar levels, but since then China accelerated
phenomenally leaving India far behind in the race.
4

However, development indicators such as adult literacy rates and life expectancy
show that India is still behind China in absolute levels. For example, the adult literacy
rate in China rose from 67% in 1980 to 93% in 2007. In India, the adult literacy rate
increased from 41% in 1980 to 64% in 2007. This clearly shows that Indias recent
figure for adult literacy rate is still below Chinas literacy rate of 1980. A similar trend
can be observed in life expectancy figures. Chinese life expectancy grew from 66 years
in 1980 to about 72 years in 2007, while Indias life expectancy grew from 54 years in
1980 to about 65 years in 2007. So, Indias life expectancy is still below Chinas 1980
level.
Hence, the essential inspiration behind this paper is to compare and understand
China and Indias differential level of development performance. I intend to discuss the
results at the national and regional level performance so as to see how far the policy
changes can contribute to the difference in development dividend in China and India

Figure 1: GDP per capita, PPP (constant 2005 international dollars) trends in China and India
0
1
0
0
0
2
0
0
0
3
0
0
0
4
0
0
0
5
0
0
0
G
D
P

p
e
r

c
a
p
i
t
a
,

P
P
P

2
0
0
5
$
1980 1990 2000 2010
year
China_pcy India_pcy

Source: World Development Indicators (2009), The World Bank.

In order to recognize the reasons for better Chinese development, I intend to
explore the variation in terms of economic policy strategies that were adopted to
accelerate economic growth. However, national performance depends on the necessary
inputs from the different regions at the sub-national level; hence I focus on inter-

3
Klein (2005) observed that in recent years, we often approached such meetings with the thought that
there was a main, sole locomotive for the World economy, but that situation has run its course, and the
motive power presently comes from China and India.
4
Recently, the World Bank substantially revised downwards its GDP at PPP estimates of both countries.
Alternative estimates, such as those by the GGDC, are closer to the unrevised figures. Refer to Figure 2
in following paper in this volume for a comparison.

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59
regional variations as well. This study is a modest attempt to indicate the dynamics of
development within the canvas of Chinese and Indian economies and to show how their
respective new economic reform policies have helped raise the economic and social
welfare of their citizens under two different institutional systems.
Although both at the national and regional level, China achieved much better
results, a closer look at a regional analysis of development quality and its dimensions
reveals widening gaps in China over the period of analysis. It is therefore crucial to
consider a broadly based development strategy which could address regional and
societal equity.
The paper is organised as follows: Section 2 draws on some comparative studies
on China and India. I specify testable hypotheses of the paper. Section 3 describes
briefly the methodology to construct a development quality index (DQI). It describes
database and present descriptive statistics therein. I examine the national level DQI on a
time series basis in China and India. Afterwards, results are shown for the regional
evolution of development quality. Finally, I report the polarization measures to indicate
how over the study period the development quality index and its dimension evolved in
Section 4. Section 5 concludes the paper.
2. Comparing China and India: An overview
In this section, I describe some related national and regional level comparative
studies on China and India. There have been some significant studies over the years
attempting to understand the differences and similarities of economic performance and
development strategies in China and India.
5

One of the salient features of the China and India comparison, apart from their
economic growth story, rests on their different institutional framework. Many
commentators on China and India have been arguing in favour of Indias sustainability
of economic growth because of the democratic nature of Indian political system. Klein
(2004) described, India is joining the high-growth club of nations, but in their own
way, as a democratic nation. Politically and culturally, the two nations differ markedly,
but economically they have some great similarities. This view was echoed by Sen
(2005): China has joined and become a leader of the world economy with stunning
success, and from this India, like many other countries, has been learning a great deal,
particularly in recent years. The insularity of the earlier Indian approach to economic
development needed to be replaced and here the experience of China has been
profoundly important..But the role of democratic participation in India suggests that
some learning and understanding may go in the other direction as well. This identifies
that political institution democracy-can hold the key to sustainability of development.
6

I intend to show that good economic policy-making should be supported by effective
institutional arrangements to help sustain development quality. Desai (2003) argued that
India will remain a soft state, a consensual polity, and it will not be capable of sustained
growth at the sort of rates which China has attained. But there will not be growth

5
International media mainly focussed on the recent poverty rate decline over the decades in China and
India. According to the China Human Development Report (2005) that headcount poverty ratio
declined drastically from 31% in 1978 to 2.8% in 2004, and in India ratio declined from about 60% in
1950s to 23% in 2003 (the latest Planning Commission estimates suggest that poverty is expected to be
19.7% in 2007).
6
See Dreze and Sen (1997) for a comparison between China and India.

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60
convergence between China and India . China will again become a viable Great
Power; India may become just a Great Democracy (see Malenbaum 1959,
Kuitenbrouwer 1973, Guha 1993, Bajpai, Jian and Sachs 1997, Khanna and Huang
2003, Srinivasan 2004, Basu, Klein and Nagar 2005a, and Bardhan 2006).
Researchers have put forward several reasons for inter-regional differences in
China and India. In the Chinese case, scholars have argued that the differential level of
development across regions could come from different sources, such as geography
(coastal provinces), climate and economic policies. Aziz and Duenwald (2001),
Dmurger et al. (2002), and OECD (2003) provided the above route for discussions of
the inter-regional disparities. Kanbur and Zhang (2005) demonstrated that regional
inequality could be explained by factors like openness and decentralization (see Bils
2005 for a survey of the literature on what determined regional inequality in China).
7

Similarly, in Indian case, scholars demonstrated that economic policies, geographic and
institutional factors at the state levels could explain differential level of economic
growth performance (see Nagaraj et al 2000, Sachs et al 2002, Krishna 2004, Veeramani
and Goldar 2005, Agarwal and Basu 2005, Virmani 2006, Basu 2006, and Aghion et al
2008).
8

By looking at polarization measures to understand coastal-inland, rural-urban
disparities, some recent empirical studies raised the concern of rising inter-regional
inequality in China. Zhang and Kanbur (2005) presented the evolution of spatial
inequalities in education and healthcare provision in China. The paper concluded a
substantial rising inequality since reform in China. Similarly, Basu, Fan and Zhang
(2007) provided some further comparison of the regional differences in China and
India. All these observations have one thing is common, that is, that of effective
economic policy-making has to be coupled with robust institutional arrangements to
sustain economic growth, but also to help spur social development and promote equity.
I propose a new measure of development quality and intend to provide some
further explanations of development differentials in China and India, even as they
pursue similar economic policies with varying degrees of intensity against the backdrop
of different institutional settings.
9
The testable hypothesis of this paper is:

7
Fan and Zhang (2004) for Chinese provinces and Nagar and Basu (2002) for Indian states highlighted
the role of infrastructure in regional economic development.
8
Rodrik and Subramanian (2005) argued, Indias productivity surge around 1980, more than a decade
before serious economic reforms were initiated. Trade liberalization, expansionary demand, a favorable
external environment, and improved agricultural performance did not play a role. We find evidence that
the trigger may have been an attitudinal shift by the government in the early 1980s that, unlike the
reforms of the 1990s, was probusiness rather than promarket in character, favoring the interests of
existing businesses rather than new entrants or consumers. According to Aghion et al (2008), benefits
from economic liberalization in different states differed because of initial level of technology and
institutional factors.
9
Sen (2004) observed that The idea of development is a complex one: it is not surprising that people
think that the way development is defined could be improved. When the subject began in the 1940s it
was primarily driven by the progress in economic growth theory that had occurred through the
preceding period in the 1930s as well the 1940s. It was dominated by the basic vision that poor
countries are just low-income countries, and the focus was simply on transcending the problems of
underdevelopment through economic growth, increasing GNP and so on. That proved to be a not very
good way of thinking about development, which has to be concerned with advancing human well-being
and human freedom. Income is one of the factors that contribute to welfare and freedom, but not the

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Given increasingly converging economic policies in China and India, how much do differences in
institutional settings matter for raising the quality of development and reducing inter-regional
polarization?
Economic policies and geographical factors could play stronger roles if they are
coupled with effective institutional framework which would help to raise development
quality and simultaneously reduce inequalities and polarization across regions. It is
inevitable that economic reform policies and opening up of the market would favour
some regions and areas, but the success would only be realised if fruits of good
outcomes were to get distributed in lagging regions and areas during the process of
economic prosperity. The discussions of results from China and India indicate that by
going beyond aggregate and national level- analysis can provide many insights into the
dynamics of economic policy-making and the key role of institutional settings.
3. A new measure of development: the development quality index (DQI)
In this section, I propose a new measure of development quality. I follow a
methodology described in Nagar and Basu (2002) to construct a composite index based
on multivariate statistical technique of principal component analysis.
10
The key
advantage of this methodology is the possibility to define a composite measure that is
able to account for interactions and interdependence between the identified set of
dimensions and variables to construct the DQI. In Basu, Klein and Nagar (2005a), we
discussed time-series samples for constructing quality of life indexes for China and
India. This type of analysis helps to identify the year-to-year change in development, and
provides an estimate of growth rate of development quality in any particular country.
The changes in economic policies and/or other changes, in totality, are reflected in the
change of development quality in a time series setting. By fixing the base year, say,
1980=100, the development quality index estimates the annual changes for both
countries over the period, and their trend helps to estimate the annual average
percentage change of the index. In a cross-section type of analysis of an index, we can
obtain only the profile and/or relative standings of countries over the others. By using a
time series profile, we look at the individual country, and trace out its own performance
in comparison to the base period.
3.1 Computational method of DQI
I postulate DQI is, in fact, a latent variable, which cannot be measured directly in
a straightforward manner. However, I assume that it is linearly determined by many
exogenous variables say,
K
X X ,.......,
1
:

Let
e X X Y
K K
+ + + + = .........
1 1
(1)

where
K
X X ,.......,
1
, measured over countries is a set of total number of variables
that are used to capture Y (DQI). For normalisation, the maximum and minimum

only factor. The process of economic growth is a rather poor basis for judging the progress of a
country; it is not, of course, irrelevant but it is only one factor among many.
10
See Klein and Ozmurcur (2002/2003) and UNCTAD (2005) for application of this methodology.

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62
values of these indicators are taken from a world sample, so that I can trace out their
relative rise over the period at the national level. In the case of regional level analysis,
the maximum and minimum values are taken from a countrys own sample during the
period under study.
Following normalization of exogenous variables, I construct principal
components of
K
X X ,.......,
1
, which have the property that the first principal
component (P
1
) accounts for the largest proportion of total variation in all development
quality variables, the second principal component (P
2
) accounts for the second largest
proportion of total variation in all development quality variables, and so on. If we
compute as many principal components as the number of development quality variables,
the total variation in all of them is accounted for by all principal components together.
The principal components are mutually orthogonal. It is worthwhile to note that the
development quality index (DQI) is a weighted sum of a normalized version of these
selected variables, where respective weights are obtained from the analysis of principal
components.
The DQI can be shown as:


K
K K
P P
DQI


+ +
+ +
=
L
L
1
1 1
(2)

Here weights are the eigenvalues of the correlation matrix of exogenous
normalised variables. I have arranged them in descending order of magnitude
as
K K
P Var P Var = = , ,
1 1
L
. Moreover, I assign largest weight

i
/
1
to P
1

because it accounts for the largest proportion of total variation in all development
quality variables. Similarly P
2
has been assigned the second largest weight

i
/
2

because it accounts for the second largest proportion of the total variation in all the
development quality variables, and so on.
In this paper, DQI has three dimensions: economic, health and knowledge, in
line with the above methodology. I obtain three indices with corresponding eigenvalues
of the normalised variables, which are used as weights. This enables me to obtain a
composite measure of development: DQI. For the national level computation of DQI, I
have to make use of different indicators in a time-series; and for regional level DQI, the
estimation is based on several time periods of cross-section samples. Regional DQI for
both China and India have two dimensions, instead of three at the national level.
Because of data availability, I group knowledge and health dimensions together, and
then economic DQI is the remaining dimension. The higher values of both indices
indicate higher levels of development quality.
11

3.2 Data and descriptive statistics
This paper is based on national and regional level data over the period 1980-2004.
The national level DQI computation is based on time-series data, which are taken from

11
See Nagar and Basu (2004) for the statistical properties of composite index as an estimator of a single
latent variable.

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63
different sources (see Appendix Table A1 for indicator details and their sources
respectively). The DQI is based on 15 indicators and are grouped into three dimensions,
viz., knowledge, health and economic. This means that at the national level, I have 25
observations for the analysis. This is a sufficiently long time series to understand the
changes in both countries over the period.
Similarly, regional level analysis is based on 29 Chinese provinces and 16 major
Indian states over the period 1980-2004 (see Appendix Table A2 and A3 for list of
Chinese provinces and Indian states).
12
For the regional level analysis, I compute DQI
for five different time points: 1980-1984, 1985-1989, 1990-1994, 1995-1999 and 2000-
2004.
13
However, DQI at the regional level is based on nine indicators, which could be
grouped into three dimensions (see Appendix Table A4 and A5 for regional level
indicator details and their sources, respectively).
Before I discuss the results, let me briefly go through the descriptive statistics
and correlation matrices at the national and regional level. Firstly, a correlation matrix is
reported for both China and India at the national level (see Appendix Table A6). And
then, summary statistics are reported, averaging over the period, of 15 indicators of
DQI. In all three dimensions, it seems that absolute values of these indicators are higher
in China as compared to India (see Appendix Table A7).
At the regional level, the data are then averaged over the period for 29 Chinese
provinces, and 16 Indian states, to obtain correlation between indicators (see Appendix
Table A8). The descriptive statistics also conform to results at the national level (see
Appendix Table A9).
14

4. Empirical results
This section discusses results of evolution and growth rates of development
quality indexes (DQI). In section 4.1, initially, I discuss results from national-level trends
of DQI. It shows year-to-year changes in development quality, and their respective
growth rates. In section 4.2, I discuss results from regional-level analysis both for China
and India in five different time periods. The results on a polarization measure are
presented in Section 4.3.
4.1 Trends in National Development
Here, I propose to estimate a development quality index (DQI) for China and
India respectively over the period 1980-2004. With fixed maximum and minimum
values for normalization, the computation of Chinese and Indian DQI figures do show
some interesting features of the trends and compositions of DQI dimensions. The DQI
of China and India are obtained with the methodology described above (see Appendix

12
Among 28 states and 7 Union territories, the 16 major States are used here for consistent data
availability for all the years and variables in our analysis. These 16 states cover more than 94 per cent of
Indias total population in the 2001 Census of India.
13
On many occasions, because of availability of data for the specific period, we had to obtain data from
the nearest available time points.
14
For some definitional and data availability issues, the figures at national level and regional level may not
necessarily match in China and India. The national level statistics are obtained from international data
sources, and regional level figures are from National statistical agencies. We attempt to obtain data
which covers aspects similar to each other.

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64
Table A10). The results of this year-to-year change of DQI are informative, as one can
trace the rise of DQI with the changes in economic reform policies and other
institutional changes.
15

A careful look at the DQI figure definitely corresponds to the turning points of
these two economies. From 1980-1984, the Chinese DQI figure was less than 1.000 in
the estimation, and then later, with the change of economic policies, the DQI figure
made a substantial improvement and exceeded the 1.000 value of the index. Similarly, at
the end of 1990s (1999), with another set of reform policies in China, the DQI figure
crossed 1.500, and continued to increase in the rest of the sample time period (Figure 2).
In a very similar fashion, the India DQI figures have shown correspondence with
changes in economic policy regimes. Since the economic reform measures (so-called
new economic policies-NEP) of 1991, DQI figures recorded for the first time a value of
more than 1.000 in 1992. The results can also be discussed, if we take them separately,
the three dimensions of DQI.
Now, I convert these DQI scores into a form of index number with a common
base of 1980=100. This procedure helps to look into the speed of improvements of
DQI over time.
Another advantage of converting them into an index number is that of estimating
the rate of annual average change of DQI and its dimension. I take the logarithmic
values of DQI of China and India from a semilog-linear regressions on chronological
time (time=1980 to 2004, 25 observations, i.e., time=1, 2,25). The trend coefficient in
the regression estimate gives the annual average rate of growth of DQI for China and
India respectively, which takes the following form:

+ + = ) ( * ) log( time DQI
(3)
Now by running an equation for China, I obtain

=0.00036. So,
00036 . 0
e
=1.000365=1+g. So, the annual average rate of growth (%) over the 25-year
period for China is g=0.036%. For India, the g=0.012%.
16
This indicates that on an
average DQI grew three times faster in China as compared to India over the same time
period.
Then, I compute the growth rates of knowledge, health and economic dimensions
of DQI. I find that annual average growth rates of knowledge DQI has been identical in
both countries, however, the health DQI grew three times faster in India as compared
to China. According to Sen (2005): the rate of extension of life expectancy in India has
been about three times as fast, on the average, as that in China, since 1979. So, even
with health DQI, which includes indicators such as life expectancy, infant mortality,
health infrastructure, access to drinking water and CO2 emissions, the findings are
remarkably similar.
17
This also validates findings of DQI. However, growth of economic
DQI has been outstanding in China. The average annual economic DQI grew in China

15
See Basu, Klein and Nagar (2005a) for some results on quality of life comparison between China and
India.
16
These regressions are both serially correlated. The main objective of this equation is to estimate the
annual average growth rates of DQI and its three dimensions.
17
It must be noted that while health outcomes improved more rapidly over the period in India than in
China, India also started at a much lower level.

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65
seven times faster. So, actually I can conclude that DQI growth rate between China and
India is mostly driven by economic DQI differential in the two countries. The social gap
is actually reducing rapidly between them when compared with the 1980 base year (see
Appendix Table A11 for growth rates of DQI, dimensions and relative improvement
ratio of DQI and its dimensions in China to India).

Figure 2: Development Quality Index (DQI) in China and India (1980=100)
1
0
0
1
0
0
.
2
1
0
0
.
4
1
0
0
.
6
1
0
0
.
8
1
0
1
D
e
v
e
l
o
p
m
e
n
t

Q
u
a
l
i
t
y

I
n
d
e
x
,

1
9
8
0
=
1
0
0
1980 1985 1990 1995 2000 2005
year
DQI_China DQI_India

Source: Authors calculation. See appendix for sources of variables and their definitions.

4.2 Trends in Regional Development
I present here the results of DQI at the regional level for both countries. The
analysis consists of 29 Chinese provinces and 16 major Indian states over the period
1980-2004.
18
By looking at the average values of DQI computed for each period across
provinces/states (Figure 3), there has been a continuous improvement of development
quality at the regional level. A similar pattern can be found in three dimensions of DQI.
They are intended to show relative performance of regions in regard to their own
country performance during the period under study.
Another point to note here is that of persistence of development quality across
provinces and states in China and India. In Figure 4, I plot the scatter of DQI in1980-84
against DQI of 2000-2004. In China, three provinces, Beijing, Shanghai and Tianjin are
consistently doing well over the period, while provinces Guizhou, Yunnan and Gansu
are at the bottom.

18
The maximum and minimum values of each country are obtained from its own sample. This implies
that relative improvements of Chinese provinces and India states are in comparison to the other
provinces and states in both countries.

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66
Figure 3: Regional development quality index (DQI) in China and India
0
.
2
.
4
.
6
.
8
A
v
e
r
a
g
e

r
e
g
i
o
n
a
l

I
n
d
e
x
,

1
9
8
0
-
2
0
0
4
China India
mean of yr8084 mean of yr8589
mean of yr9094 mean of yr9599
mean of yr0004

Source: Authors calculation. See appendix for sources of variables and their definitions.

One may also observe that coastal provinces have outperformed the inland
provinces (the figures separately mark coastal and inland regions). It is evident from
scatter plots that many of the Chinese inland provinces are trapped at a very low level of
DQI.


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Figure 4: Persistence of Development Quality Index (DQI) in China and India
Beijing
Shanghai
Tianjin
Liaoning
Guangdong
Zhejiang
Hainan
J iangsu
Fujian
Shandong
Shanxi
J ilin Heilongjiang
Hebei
Xinjiang
Ningxia
Hubei
Inner Mongolia
Henan
Shaanxi
Qinghai
Hunan
J iangxi
Guangxi
Anhui Gansu
Sichuan +chongqing
Yunnan
Guizhou
.
6
.
8
1
1
.
2
1
.
4
D
Q
I

i
n

2
0
0
0
-
2
0
0
4
.3 .4 .5 .6 .7
DQI in 1980-1984
Coast Inland
Fitted values




Andhra Pradesh
Gujarat
Karnataka
Kerala
Maharashtra
Orissa
Tamil Nadu
West Bengal
Assam
Bihar
Haryana
Himachal Pradesh
Madhya Pradesh
Punjab
Rajasthan
Uttar Pradesh
.
5
1
1
.
5

D
Q
I

i
n

2
0
0
0
-
2
0
0
4
.3 .4 .5 .6
DQI in 1980-1984
Coast Inland
Fitted values

Source: Authors calculation. See appendix for sources of variables and their definitions.


In one of the latest reports on human development status in China, the 2005
China Human Development Report raised some of the concerns regarding inequality, as
it is evident in this paper. To that end, this report points that human development and
social equity are both the goals of a society; and should therefore be looked at as an
interdependent and inseparable part of the development agenda. The DQI specifically
points to this critical need in China at the regional level.

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68
Figure 5: Persistence of Knowledge and Health DQI in China and India
Beijing
Shanghai
Tianjin
Liaoning
Guangdong
Zhejiang
Hainan
J iangsu
Fujian
Shandong
Shanxi
J ilin
Heilongjiang
Hebei
Xinjiang
Ningxia
Hubei
Inner Mongolia Henan
Shaanxi
Qinghai
Hunan
J iangxi
Guangxi
Anhui
Gansu
Sichuan +chongqing
Yunnan Guizhou
.
6
.
8
1
1
.
2
1
.
4
K
H
D
Q
I

i
n

2
0
0
0
-
2
0
0
4
.4 .5 .6 .7 .8
KHDQI in 1980-1984
Coast Inland
Fitted values


Andhra Pradesh
Gujarat
Karnataka
Kerala
Maharashtra
Orissa
Tamil Nadu
West Bengal
Assam
Bihar
Haryana
Himachal Pradesh
Madhya Pradesh
Punjab
Rajasthan
Uttar Pradesh
.
5
1
1
.
5

K
H
D
Q
I

i
n

2
0
0
0
-
2
0
0
4
.4 .5 .6 .7 .8 .9
KHDQI in 1980-1984
Coast Inland
Fitted values

Source: Authors calculation. See appendix for sources of variables and their definitions.

What do we find among Indian states? The scatter plot for Indian states (right-
hand side figure) shows some appealing features. Kerala is the state, which has
absolutely out-performed the rest of Indian states, and performance is persistent over
the period.
19
Some other states, like, Punjab, Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra, and Gujarat
performed quite well over the period. Furthermore, likewise in China, the Indian states,
such as, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, and Orissa, (these are so-
called BIMARU and Orissa States. I now call this as BIMARUO) are consistently
lagging behind in DQI.
20
In India also there is some evidence to suggest that coastal

19
Sen (2005) repeatedly noted that Keralas development performance is actually better than most of the
Chinese provinces and that of many developing countries.
20
BIMARU comes from the word Bimaar in Hindi which means sick. We added also Orissa, and re-
label it as BIMARUO.

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69
states have performed relatively well as compared to Inland states of India, except
Orissa.
21

Similarly, by looking separately at two dimensions of DQI, I also notice that in
knowledge and health dimensions of DQI, Chinese provinces have shown overall
similar trends as in DQI. In the case of Indian states, I find differences amongst states
are narrowing slowly over the period (Figure 5).
22


Figure 6: Persistence of Economic DQI in China and India
Beijing
Shanghai
Tianjin
Liaoning
Guangdong
Zhejiang
Hainan
J iangsu
Fujian
Shandong
Shanxi
J ilin
Heilongjiang
Hebei
Xinjiang
Ningxia
Hubei
Inner Mongolia
Henan
Shaanxi
Qinghai
Hunan J iangxi
Guangxi
Anhui
Gansu
Sichuan +chongqing
Yunnan
Guizhou
.
2
.
4
.
6
.
8
1
E
D
Q
I

i
n

2
0
0
0
-
2
0
0
4
.05 .1 .15 .2 .25
EDQI in 1980-1984
Coast Inland
Fitted values


Andhra Pradesh
Gujarat
Karnataka
Kerala
Maharashtra
Orissa
Tamil Nadu
West Bengal
Assam
Bihar
Haryana
Himachal Pradesh
Madhya Pradesh
Punjab
Rajasthan
Uttar Pradesh
0
.
2
.
4
.
6
.
8

E
D
Q
I

i
n

2
0
0
0
-
2
0
0
4
0 .05 .1 .15 .2
EDQI in 1980-1984
Coast Inland
Fitted values

Source: Authors calculation. See appendix for sources of variables and their definitions.

I report in Figure 6 the persistence of the economic DQI. The fast growing
Chinese provinces kept their speed over the period, including Beijing, Shanghai, and

21
See the 2001 National Human Development Report for further discussions on some of the key issues
of human development at the regional level in India.
22
It should be noted that all these indices are obtained from the normalized variables, and one cant
ignore the absolute levels of these variables, which in some cases are large.

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70
others; while Indian states have also shown persistence of their performance, such as
Punjab, Maharashtra, and others over the period (see Appendix Tables A12 to A17 for
detail results).
23

The discussion of results provides some interesting insights into the relative
performance of provinces/states in China and India over the studied period. I present
evidence to suggest that there are some extreme cases in both countries in terms of the
development quality. In China, Beijing, Shanghai and Tianjin are far ahead of many
other Chinese provinces, and while in India, Kerala has outperformed all the states in
overall level of development quality. However, these findings raise some further
concerns about the inter-regional disparity and/or tendency of polarization across
provinces/states in both countries.
4.3 Is inter-regional polarization rising in China and India?
The above findings motivated me to look more closely at polarization measures to
find out inter-regional disparity. By dividing regions into coast-inland or north-south
etc, it is possible to understand the process of change (either convergence or
divergence) at the regional level. To address this issue, I follow the methodology as
discussed in Zhang and Kanbur (2001), Kanbur and Zhang (2005), and Basu, Fan and
Zhang (2007). I construct two measures of inequality: (i) the standard Gini coefficient of
inequality and (ii) a measure from the decomposable generalized entropy class (GE) of
inequality measures (Shorrocks, 1980, 1984). I mostly follow the above papers to discuss
the GE class of inequality measures as it helps to allow inequality across groups to be
broken down into within group inequality and between group inequality.
By following Kanbur and Zhang (2005), I define the ratio of the between group
inequality in total inequality (within group inequality + between group inequality) as a
polarization index. Therefore, it measures the contribution of the between group
inequality. In this section, I construct a polarization index of the development quality
index, and its dimensions for China and India.
For both China and India, I present inequality and polarization measures by
taking 29 Chinese provinces and 16 major Indian states. By using the development
quality index (DQI), I analyze inter-regional inequality of DQI in China and India. I
report DQI results for Chinese provinces at five different time points (see Appendix
Table A18), and similarly I report Indian states inequality (see Appendix Table A19). I
report results for Gini and Theil-generalized entropy (GE) as measures of inequality.
Inter-regional inequality of DQI in China for both Gini inequality and Theil-GE
measure has been stable with some rise during the 1990s. However, economic DQI has
shown a steady increase in the inequality level since 1990. The knowledge and health
DQI inequality has shown a decline over the same period. While in the Indian case, the
Gini inequality figures of DQI have shown a rise in the early 1980s, with a decline only
during the period of economic reform policies of the early 1990s, and later on regional
inequality of DQI has gone up by a couple of percentage points. Similar findings are
reported by considering Theil-GE measures. The knowledge and health as well as

23
The values of DQI and other indices can be obtained upon request.

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71
economic DQI figures have shown similar pattern as in Chinese provinces.
24
I further
look at the coefficients of inequality; they indicate that in China, both Gini and Theil
measures have lower inequality figures in DQI and two other dimensions. The
economic DQI inequality measures in recent years show a similar trend, and their
figures are not very different.
Before discussing the polarization measures, it may be interesting to point out the
contribution of between and within groups to total regional inequality both in China and
India over the period of five different time points.
25
DQI statistics show that (see
Appendix Table A18 for China and Table A19 for India) at the beginning of 1980s,
regional inequality was mainly contributed within groups, but over the years the gap has
reduced slowly and steadily. In recent years, half of the coastal and inland differences of
inequality in DQI are due to between group differences. Similar findings are also
reported for economic DQI. However, if we look at the knowledge and health DQI, the
within-group contribution is still very large as compared to between coastal and inland
provinces.
In the Indian case, the story is very different, the overall contribution of inequality
between groups is decreasing over time, while the within-group contribution to total
regional inequality is rising in DQI. The knowledge and health of the DQI dimension
also follows the overall DQI pattern. However, in the case of the economic DQI, the
results indicate that between coastal and inland differences contribute slowly in greater
proportion to total regional inequality. But, the magnitude of their differences in
economic DQI for India is almost half that of China.
In India, the development status of BIMARUO states is of great concern.
26
It may
be noted that the current population share in these five states of India constitutes about
94% of Indias total population. So, their overall improvement is of great importance
for Indias national development. I report the results for India on two groups of states,
viz., BIMARUO states (5 states of India) and the rest (see Appendix Table A20). Here
again, I find that between regions contribution to total regional inequality is decreasing
in DQI over the period, so are knowledge and health DQI. However, the economic
DQI has an opposite story to signal.
This result for BIMARUO states is very encouraging in the case of overall DQI
and in knowledge and health dimension of DQI. Indias overall development strategies
since Independence have been directed toward reduction in overall development

24
We also ran the similar exercise for North-South divides, and results indicate widening up in China and
some sort of closing the gap among Indian states.
25
In other words, if all provinces/states had the same DQI, the Theil index would be equal to zero. The
Theil index compares the DQI share of a province/state with its population share. The Theil-GE index
is easily decomposable and can identify contribution of these sub-groups of provinces/states to overall
inequality and is also additive for the components attributable to between and within-group differentials
as shown above in mathematical form.
26
Due to lack of consistent data availability since 1980s, I could not take into consideration seven states
of north-eastern India, namely, Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, Sikkim
and Tripura. Over the decades, lack of investment and other facilities have pushed the states to a low-
growth pole in Indian economy. The Indian planning process should be directed to adequately take their
economic under-development into account, so as to main-stream their economies, and provide them
with much-needed resources. The Government of India set up the Ministry of Development of North
Eastern Region in 2001 to act as the nodal Department of the Central Government to deal with
matters pertaining to socio-economic development of the eight States of North East. See
http://necouncil.nic.in/

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72
disparities of these five Indian states (the most populous and poor states). It seems that
the systematic targeting of these states to raise their level of development has been
paying off lately. Moreover, over the years, due to Indias growing tendency to have
coalition governments (at the centre), consisting of several regional parties, different
interest groups have influenced the allocation of resources more equitably in these states
of India. The national planning commission has been able to cause closing down of
gaps between two groups of Indian states.
27

So, the preliminary results indicate that between regions inequality in DQI has
been rising in China over the years, and reversing in India. By looking at the knowledge
and health dimension of DQI, I find the trend has been decreasing in India, while there
has been a tendency for it to increase among Chinese provinces.
All of this means that apart from economic DQI, in China there has been no sign
of convergence between coastal and inland provinces; while in India the story is
promising from the equity angle. This result may have some important policy
implications that I intend to draw up in concluding remarks. By using within-inequality
and between-inequality, I compute the polarization index as described previously. The
last rows of tables (see Appendix Table A18, A19 and A20 for each of the panels)
indicate that coastal and inland areas became increasingly polarized since the 1980s in
China (from 15.5% in 1980-1984 to 45.6% in 2000-2004), while there has been a clear
indication of decline in India over the same period (from 49.2% to 35.3%) in DQI.
Then, analysing knowledge and health DQI, I find a similar pattern as in DQI. But, the
polarization index shows a much faster rise both in China and India in the economic
DQI dimension. These tend to point out that economic growth is not equitably
percolating to all sections and groups of the society during this period of economic
policy reforms in India. A closer look at the tables reveals that actually from the mid-
1980s until mid-1990s there has been a tendency of decline in the polarization index in
India, which was not the case of China.
In Figure 7, I plot the polarization index of coastal and inland provinces/states of
China/India for all of five time points separately. The figure (first from the top)
illustrates that in the beginning of 1980s, just when China initiated its economic reform
policies, the polarizations between coastal and inland provinces were not pronounced.

27
It may be noted that the non-inclusion of some of the poorest north-eastern states in India could make
some differences in the polarization index results.

Comparing China and India: Is the dividend of economic reforms polarized?

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Figure 7: Regional polarization index of DQI, KHDQI and EDQI in China and India
0
1
0
2
0
3
0
4
0
5
0
R
e
g
i
o
n
a
l

P
o
l
a
r
i
z
a
t
i
o
n

I
n
d
e
x

o
f

D
Q
I
China India
mean of yr8084 mean of yr8589
mean of yr9094 mean of yr9599
mean of yr0004


0
1
0
2
0
3
0
4
0
5
0
R
e
g
i
o
n
a
l

P
o
l
a
r
i
z
a
t
i
o
n

I
n
d
e
x

o
f

K
H
D
Q
I
China India
mean of yr8084 mean of yr8589
mean of yr9094 mean of yr9599
mean of yr0004


0
1
0
2
0
3
0
4
0
5
0
R
e
g
i
o
n
a
l

P
o
l
a
r
i
z
a
t
i
o
n

I
n
d
e
x

o
f

E
D
Q
I
China India
mean of yr8084 mean of yr8589
mean of yr9094 mean of yr9599
mean of yr0004

Source: Authors calculation. See appendix for sources of variables and their definitions.

But with the deepening of the economic reform process in China, the government
initiated preferential policies for the coastal provinces, and that is evident in the
divergence of DQIs. The gap between coastal provinces and inland provinces has

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74
dramatically increased over the last 25 years of Chinese development planning history.
While in India, in the beginning of 1980s, there was clearly a wide gap between coastal
and inland provinces. But, then the central government, in a democratic setting,
introduced economic policies that were intended to be equitable, and resources were
made available across regions and states. This has helped two groups of regions to close
their development gap over the period.
By exploring the polarization index, the latest figures indicate that the regional
gap, as measured by the coast-inland divide, is higher in China as compared to India. In
knowledge and health dimension of DQI the results show a growing gap in China, while
in India there has been a process of convergence between the two groups. However, for
the economic DQI, the polarization is increasing in both countries, but the magnitude
of polarization in China is dramatically rising. This is now a major issue in China as the
latest China Human Development Report calls for development with equity. A similar
concern has been aired in Indian too.

Figure 8 Regional polarization index of BIMARUO states in India
0
2
0
4
0
6
0
8
0
R
e
g
i
o
n
a
l

P
o
l
a
r
i
z
a
t
i
o
n

I
n
d
e
x
DQI EDQI KHDQI
mean of yr8084 mean of yr8589
mean of yr9094 mean of yr9599
mean of yr0004

Source: Authors calculation. See appendix for sources of variables and their definitions.

Once again, by looking at the polarization index of BIMARUO states with the
rest, in overall DQI and the knowledge and health dimension, I find a declining gap
between these two groups of regions, but reverse order in inequality of economic DQI.
Figure 8 presents the gap in DQI between these two sets of regions was very high in
1980s (65.4%) and declined to 48.5% in the latest period. The knowledge and health
DQI polarization index figure was 64.0% in 1980s, and declined to 40.5% in the latest
period. However, the polarization index between BIMARUO states on the economic
DQI has been stable until mid-1990s, and thereafter it has started picking up. This
indicates that since economic reforms of the early 1990s, the economic performance
(that includes income per capita) has been concentrated in pockets of Indias

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75
states/regions and with sections of the population gaining much from economic
prosperity, leading to an increasing inequality level over the period.
28

A closer look illustrates that from the 2
nd
half of the 1990s, because of rising
economic prosperity in many Indian states, such as Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra,
Karnataka and others, due to a manifold rise in the service sector and other high-tech
industries.
29

In Table 1 below, I sum up the main findings on polarization indices both for
China and India. In Chinese provinces, the coastal-inland gap has been on rise as
compared to the 1980s figures in DQI and the two of its dimensions; while in India the
gap could be observed in the economic dimension of DQI, but at a much smaller scale.
After looking at the evidence of special groups of Indian states, BIMARUO,
traditionally very slow-growing states in terms of GDP per capita, I find declining
polarization as in the case of the coastal and inland divide.

Table 1: Summary of polarization measures in China and India (inter-regional analysis)
Polarization index
Indices Coastal-Inland Regions
BIMARUO
States vs. the rest
of Indian States
China India India
Development quality index (DQI) *** *** ***
Knowledge and health development
quality index (KHDQI)
*** *** ***
Economic development quality
index (EDQI)
*** ** ***
Notes: As compared to first year for the specific indicator: increase decrease. * Change from the base year to current year
is > 5% to <10% points, ** > 10% and < 15%, and *** >15% and above. Inequality measures are computed using
population weights in China and India at provincial and state level respectively. Polarization is defined as the ratio of
between to between and within GE.
Source: See Appendix Tables A18 to A20.

28
See Basu and Krishnakumar (2005b) for discussion of spatial distribution of development across not
only among Indian states, but also among different socio-economic groups in rural and urban areas in
the post-reform era.
29
In India over the past few years, the services sector has largely been growing due to IT and IT-enabled
services and more recently business process outsourcing (BPO). This sector has now become the main
driver of export earnings in India. Recent global statistics show that India has captured 65% of the
global offshore IT market and 45% of the BPO market. In 2003 figures indicate that Indias exports of
commercial services other than travel, transportation, and finance amounted to US$18.9 billion, while
Chinas figures stood at US$20.6 billion. The service sector accounts for 51% of Indias GDP as
compared to the 32% share of this sector in China's GDP.

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5. Conclusions
In recent years there has been tremendous amount of attention on China and
India as commentators predict that these two countries would together dominate world
economic conditions.
30
But often, the analysis is too simplistic, and does not go into
understanding the dynamics of development and its constituents not only at the national
level, but also in these disaggregated terms at the regional level.
The preliminary findings show that the development quality index (DQI), a broad
measure of socio-economic development of a country, grew three times faster in China
at the national level over the period of 1980-2004. However, the results are just reversed
once I look at the health dimension of DQI, leading to a substantial narrowing of the
gap in human development. The better Indian performance on the growth of this
measure may be attributable to the democratic setting of India, as argued by many
analysts, including Sen (2005).
Similarly, the inter-regional analysis of DQI and its dimension point to the fact
that there have been secular improvements in development, and they are linked to
changes in economic policy reforms in both countries. But, polarization measures
between different regions in China have shown a clear sign of divergence, while Indian
states have shown a tendency of convergence. The above illustrations of results indicate
that even Indias poorest states have shown a catching-up process with the richer states
over the period of study.
These findings may have some very important policy implications. A democratic
framework of government and other institutional settings have affected Indian
government in New Delhi to step-up equitable development packages across the
country; otherwise the coalition government would fail to continue to remain in power.
In China, the widening of this gap between regions is of great rising concern. The
Communist party leaders in Beijing, it seems, have not done enough to spread the fruits
of economic successes to achieve social equity as well. Political pluralism in India
appears to be significant for Indias success in increasing social development quality and
reducing inter-regional polarization. But this alone may not be enough to catch up to
Chinas economic growth frontier.

30
By looking at the long-term growth projections of BRICs (Brazil, Russia, India and China) countries,
India seems to win the race, as they predicted that Growth for the BRICs is likely to slow significantly
toward the end of the period, with only India seeing growth rates significantly above 3 per cent by 2050.
Goldman Sachs (2003)


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Shorrocks A. F. (1980), Inequality Decomposition by Population Subgroups,
Econometrica, 52
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Living, United Nations, New York
United Nations (2003), Human Development Reports, United Nations Development
Program, UNDP, New York
Veeramani C., Goldar B. (2005), Manufacturing productivity in Indian States: Does
Investment Climate Matter?, Economic and Political Weekly, June 11
Virmani A. (2006), Chinas socialist market economy: Lessons of success, Working
paper, 178, ICRIER, New Delhi
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Wilson, D., Purushothaman R. (2003), Dreaming With BRICs: The Path to 2050,
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of Development Studies, 37

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Appendix Tables
Table A1: Sources of Indicators for China and India at National level
Knowledge DQI Health DQI Economic DQI
Literacy rate, adult total (% of
people ages 15 and above)
(ALR)
Life expectancy at birth,
total (years) (LE)
GDP per capita (PPP, $
international 2000) (PCY)
Enrolment, primary,
secondary and tertiary (%
gross) (GER)
Mortality rate, infant (per
1,000 live births) (IMR)
Telephone mainlines (per
1,000 people) (TEL)
Total number of years in
schools (YSC)1
Physicians (per 1,000
people) (PHY)
Electric power
consumption (kwh per
capita) (ELEC)

Hospital beds (per 1,000
people) (PHB)
Television sets (per 1,000
people) (TV)

Improved water source
(% of population with
access) (WAT)
Energy use (kg of oil
equivalent per capita)
(ENG)

CO2 emissions (metric
tons per capita) (CO2)
Motor vehicles in use -
commercial vehicles per
1000 people (MV) 2
Notes. 1Barro-Lee database (2000), 2National Statistical Agencies of China and India. Rest of the indicators are mostly
from the World Bank WDI 2006, and is supplemented by national level statistics.


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Table A2: List of Chinese Provinces in sample
Province
Coastal provinces
(=1, 0 otherwise)
Northern provinces
(=1, 0 otherwise)
Eastern provinces
(=1, 0 otherwise)
Beijing 1 1 1
Tianjin 1 1 1
Hebei 0 1 1
Shanxi 0 1 0
Inner
Mongolia 0 1 0
Liaoning 1 1 1
Jilin 0 1 0
Heilongjiang 0 1 1
Shanghai 1 0 1
Jiangsu 1 0 1
Zhejiang 1 0 1
Anhui 0 0 0
Fujian 1 0 1
Jiangxi 0 0 0
Shandong 1 1 1
Henan 0 1 0
Hubei 0 0 0
Hunan 0 0 0
Guangdong 1 0 1
Guangxi 0 0 1
Hainan 1 0 1
Sichuan and
Chongqing 0 0 0
Guizhou 0 0 0
Yunnan 0 0 0
Shaanxi 0 1 0
Gansu 0 1 0
Qinghai 0 1 0
Ningxia 0 1 0
Xinjiang 0 1 0


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Table A3: List of Indian States in sample
state
Coastal states
(=1, 0 otherwise)
Northern
provinces
(=1, 0 otherwise)
Eastern
provinces
(=1, 0 otherwise)
BIMARUO
States
(=1, 0
otherwise)
Andhra
Pradesh
1 0 0 0
Assam 0 0 1 0
Bihar 0 0 1 1
Gujarat 1 0 0 0
Haryana 0 1 0 0
Himachal
Pradesh
0 1 0 0
Karnataka 1 0 0 0
Kerala 1 0 0 0
Madhya
Pradesh
0 1 0 1
Maharashtra 1 0 0 0
Orissa 1 0 1 1
Punjab 0 1 0 0
Rajasthan 0 0 0 1
Tamil Nadu 1 0 0 0
Uttar
Pradesh
0 1 5 1
West Bengal 1 0 1 0


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Table A4: Sources of Chinese regional dataset
Indicators/variables
Units/period
covered
Sources
Gross Domestic Product
(PCY)
(in yuan), 1980-2004
State Statistical Bureau (various
years), China Statistical Bureau
(various years)
Population (POP)
(in persons), 1980-
2004
China Statistical Bureau (various
years)
Adult Literacy Rate (ALR)
(%), 1982, 1987,
1990, 1995, 1999
China Statistical Bureau (various
years)
Infant mortality rate(IMR)
(per 1000), 1981,
1985, 1990, 1995,
2000
State Statistical Bureau (various
years), Mortality data of Chinese
Population (1995)
Life expectancy (LE)
(years),1981, 1985,
1990, 1995, 2000
Mortality data of Chinese
Population (1995)
Population per hospital bed
(PHB)
(number), 1985,
1990, 1995, 2000,
2004
State Statistical Bureau (various
years), China Statistical Bureau
(various years)
Per capita electricity
consumption(PEC)
(kwh), 1986, 1990,
1995, 2000, 2004
China Statistical Bureau (various
years)
Telephone lines (TEL)
(per 100000
population), 1985,
1990, 1995, 2001,
2004
China Statistical Bureau (various
years)
Road length(ROAD)
( per 100 sq.km),
1985, 1990, 1995,
2000, 2004
China Statistical Bureau (various
years)
Motor vehicles(MV)
(per 1000 people).
1985, 1992, 1995,
2000, 2004
China Statistical Bureau (various
years)


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Table A5: Sources of Indian Regional dataset
Indicators/variables Units/period covered Sources
State Gross Domestic
Product (PCY)
(in Rs), 1980-2004
EPW, Economic survey
(various years)
Population (POP) (in persons), 1980-2004 Census of India, CMIE
Adult Literacy Rate (ALR)
(%), 1981, 1985,
1991,1995, 2001
Census of India, NHRD
2002
Infant mortality rate(IMR)
(per 1000), 1981,1985,
1991, 1996, 2002
CMIE, Economic survey
(various years)
Life expectancy (LE)
( years),1985, 1988, 1992,
1996, 2002
Statistical Abstract of India
CMIE(various issues)
Population per hospital bed
(PHB)
(number), 1980, 1985,
1990,1995, 2002
Health Information of
India, CMIE
Per capita electricity
consumption(PEC)
(kwh), 1985, 1990, 1995,
2000, 2004
Statistical Abstract of India
CMIE(various issues)
Telephone lines (TEL)
(per 100000 population),
1985, 1990, 1995, 2000,
2004
CMIE(various issues), GOI
Road length(ROAD)
( per 100 sq.km),
1980,1985, 1990, 1995,
2002
CMIE(various issues), GOI
Motor vehicles(MV)
(per 1000 people).1980,
1990, 1995, 2000, 2003
Statistical Abstract, GOI.

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Table A6: Correlation matrix, China and India-national figures

Indicators alr ger ysc le imr phy hob wat co pcy tel elec tv eng mv
alr 1
ger 0.968 1
ysc 0.934 0.939 1
le 0.974 0.963 0.876 1
imr -0.884 -0.817 -0.807 -0.840 1
phy 0.850 0.871 0.964 0.785 -0.699 1
hob 0.553 0.572 0.790 0.409 -0.470 0.844 1
wat 0.949 0.956 0.954 0.944 -0.770 0.908 0.613 1
co 0.869 0.905 0.922 0.835 -0.779 0.835 0.690 0.855 1
pcy 0.964 0.952 0.858 0.993 -0.847 0.752 0.377 0.925 0.844 1
tel 0.820 0.757 0.609 0.869 -0.748 0.468 0.042 0.716 0.634 0.901 1
elec 0.964 0.952 0.867 0.986 -0.832 0.761 0.401 0.922 0.864 0.995 0.904 1
tv 0.973 0.982 0.963 0.966 -0.813 0.895 0.613 0.981 0.919 0.957 0.762 0.961 1
eng 0.978 0.965 0.889 0.997 -0.848 0.803 0.444 0.950 0.838 0.989 0.848 0.979 0.970 1
C
h
i
n
a

mv 0.956 0.934 0.835 0.986 -0.837 0.724 0.342 0.905 0.830 0.996 0.930 0.997 0.942 0.977 1
alr 1
ger 0.949 1
ysc 0.988 0.941 1
le 0.987 0.954 0.998 1
imr -0.964 -0.960 -0.981 -0.988 1
phy 0.920 0.837 0.897 0.887 -0.836 1
hob 0.902 0.770 0.913 0.901 -0.867 0.851 1
wat 0.962 0.936 0.979 0.982 -0.975 0.859 0.850 1
co 0.983 0.937 0.997 0.997 -0.982 0.891 0.919 0.974 1
pcy 0.987 0.913 0.978 0.973 -0.939 0.928 0.929 0.946 0.977 1
tel 0.876 0.762 0.816 0.804 -0.746 0.892 0.822 0.760 0.812 0.910 1
elec 0.977 0.941 0.993 0.997 -0.989 0.867 0.911 0.979 0.996 0.966 0.784 1
Tv 0.968 0.893 0.981 0.979 -0.965 0.868 0.957 0.953 0.984 0.966 0.804 0.984 1
eng 0.978 0.896 0.959 0.953 -0.912 0.929 0.915 0.926 0.958 0.996 0.935 0.943 0.946 1
I
n
d
i
a

mv 0.977 0.891 0.960 0.954 -0.925 0.930 0.940 0.917 0.958 0.986 0.925 0.947 0.957 0.982 1
Note. See Appendix Table A1 for abbreviations

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Table A7: Descriptive statistics, China and India, national figures
China India
Indicators Obs Mean Std.Dev Min Max Mean Std.Dev Min Max
alr 25 79.9 7.6 67.1 92.0 51.2 6.5 41.0 62.0
ger 25 59.8 4.3 53.4 66.0 49.5 4.6 39.5 57.0
ysc 25 5.1 0.7 3.6 5.9 3.9 0.7 2.7 4.9
le 25 68.4 1.8 66.1 71.6 59.0 3.1 53.9 63.5
imr 25 36.4 4.9 26.0 49.0 83.4 16.4 61.6 113.0
phy 25 1.5 0.1 1.2 1.7 0.4 0.1 0.3 0.6
hob 25 2.5 0.1 2.2 2.6 0.8 0.1 0.7 0.9
wat 25 88.5 5.5 81.0 95.5 82.0 7.4 70.0 92.0
co 25 2.2 0.4 1.5 2.9 0.9 0.2 0.5 1.2
pcy 25 2414.1 1415.4 762.6 5418.9 1860.2 506.0 1178.5 2885.3
tel 25 82.2 132.8 2.2 425.0 18.2 20.9 3.1 72.0
elec 25 675.0 338.7 281.6 1380.0 298.8 99.4 141.8 439.0
tv 25 181.0 122.2 5.1 365.0 41.5 32.0 2.5 85.0
eng 25 2.8 1.2 1.3 4.7 4.1 0.6 3.3 5.5
mv 25 7.7 5.2 1.8 19.0 5.9 3.3 2.0 12.5
Note. See Appendix Table A1 for abbreviations.

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Table A8: Correlation matrix, China and India-regional figures
Indicators alr le imr phb pcy tel pec road mv
China
alr 1
le 0.670 1
imr 0.638 0.804 1
phb 0.533 0.310 0.644 1
pcy 0.185 0.332 0.569 0.680 1
tel 0.576 0.744 0.886 0.713 0.718 1
pec 0.256 0.461 0.677 0.721 0.888 0.782 1
road 0.444 0.727 0.781 0.270 0.463 0.713 0.412 1
mv 0.466 0.456 0.822 0.761 0.628 0.810 0.704 0.580 1
India
alr 1
le 0.807 1
imr -0.625 -0.784 1
phb 0.921 0.849 -0.706 1
pcy -0.036 0.006 -0.140 0.046 1
tel 0.653 0.828 -0.475 0.689 -0.123 1
pec 0.298 0.507 -0.167 0.274 0.201 0.763 1
road 0.701 0.590 -0.544 0.742 -0.162 0.398 -0.078 1
mv 0.362 0.511 -0.251 0.347 0.165 0.779 0.952 0.041 1
Note. See Appendix Table A4 and A5 for abbreviations.

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Table A9: Descriptive statistics, China and India-regional figures
China India
Indicators
Observations
(China/India)
Mean Std.Dev Min Max Mean Std.Dev Min Max
alr 29/16 77.7 8.5 58.6 89.2 53.8 11.3 37.4 84.3
le 29/16 69.0 3.1 62.4 75.3 60.8 4.6 54.3 71.5
imr 29/16 47.2 28.1 14.9 130.3 84.5 22.3 36.3 126.2
phb 29/16 284.5 99.2 170.3 536.9 89.2 54.8 34.5 256.8
pcy 29/16 7.4 0.6 6.6 8.8 5.6 0.7 3.7 6.8
tel 29/16 97.5 52.0 34.7 244.0 27.1 16.8 6.8 62.7
pec 29/16 1105.8 631.4 429.3 2993.9 290.5 167.2 63.4 694.5
road 29/16 274.4 176.6 24.9 692.5 855.9 677.0 315.6 3196.5
mv 29/16 12.9 10.9 5.1 60.3 37.1 20.4 10.7 78.6
Note. See Appendix Table A4 and A5 for abbreviations.

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Table A10: Development quality index (DQI) trends in China and India
China India
Year DQI Knowledge Health Economic DQI Knowledge Health Economic
1980 0.896 0.8 0.565 0.24 0.770 0.555 0.501 0.3
1981 0.913 0.814 0.568 0.252 0.788 0.572 0.506 0.311
1982 0.933 0.829 0.573 0.268 0.805 0.589 0.513 0.317
1983 0.955 0.846 0.578 0.286 0.825 0.606 0.52 0.328
1984 0.979 0.856 0.585 0.311 0.84 0.62 0.525 0.336
1985 1.003 0.866 0.593 0.336 0.858 0.635 0.533 0.344
1986 1.037 0.886 0.601 0.367 0.878 0.648 0.546 0.354
1987 1.078 0.906 0.611 0.41 0.898 0.66 0.558 0.364
1988 1.124 0.926 0.622 0.46 0.913 0.673 0.571 0.365
1989 1.148 0.94 0.628 0.482 0.942 0.683 0.585 0.392
1990 1.173 0.954 0.634 0.505 0.972 0.693 0.599 0.42
1991 1.199 0.961 0.638 0.54 0.991 0.704 0.605 0.437
1992 1.233 0.968 0.642 0.59 1.015 0.723 0.612 0.453
1993 1.272 0.975 0.648 0.645 1.035 0.735 0.616 0.471
1994 1.317 0.989 0.653 0.704 1.052 0.741 0.621 0.49
1995 1.358 1.005 0.66 0.754 1.07 0.748 0.626 0.51
1996 1.399 1.022 0.671 0.799 1.093 0.759 0.636 0.529
1997 1.431 1.016 0.677 0.853 1.109 0.761 0.64 0.551
1998 1.464 1.017 0.681 0.906 1.137 0.764 0.662 0.575
1999 1.505 1.034 0.676 0.966 1.162 0.787 0.666 0.592
2000 1.584 1.076 0.675 1.062 1.181 0.797 0.671 0.61
2001 1.653 1.079 0.685 1.171 1.221 0.835 0.673 0.641
2002 1.747 1.086 0.698 1.315 1.239 0.839 0.682 0.66
2003 1.845 1.09 0.704 1.476 1.274 0.847 0.687 0.708
2004 1.863 1.094 0.713 1.495 1.292 0.854 0.692 0.726
Mean 1.284 0.961 0.639 0.687 1.014 0.713 0.602 0.471
Note. Authors calculation

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Table A11: Average annual relative growth rate (%) in DQI
Indices China India
Relative improvement ratio
(China/India)
Development quality Index(DQI) 0.036% 0.012% 2.927
Knowledge development quality index 0.005% 0.005% 1.000
Health development quality index 0.001% 0.003% 0.306
Economic development quality index 0.064% 0.009% 7.247
Note. Authors calculation

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Table A12: Rank of development quality index (DQI), Chinese provinces
Province
DQI
1980-84
DQI
1985-89
DQI
1990-94
DQI
1995-99
DQI
2000-2004
Beijing 0.634 0.885 1.053 1.271 1.297
Tianjin 0.539 0.732 0.816 1.094 1.170
Hebei 0.409 0.547 0.581 0.726 0.792
Shanxi 0.457 0.601 0.604 0.769 0.849
Inner Mongolia 0.380 0.508 0.528 0.638 0.760
Liaoning 0.518 0.682 0.680 0.818 0.922
Jilin 0.475 0.621 0.615 0.743 0.826
Heilongjiang 0.444 0.577 0.578 0.721 0.833
Shanghai 0.650 0.871 1.002 1.230 1.283
Jiangsu 0.395 0.525 0.549 0.713 0.874
Zhejiang 0.384 0.537 0.585 0.795 0.920
Anhui 0.344 0.456 0.458 0.611 0.689
Fujian 0.392 0.515 0.550 0.732 0.811
Jiangxi 0.375 0.479 0.477 0.584 0.683
Shandong 0.383 0.521 0.557 0.741 0.796
Henan 0.380 0.503 0.506 0.659 0.722
Hubei 0.416 0.539 0.524 0.645 0.743
Hunan 0.379 0.496 0.486 0.618 0.720
Guangdong 0.406 0.544 0.604 0.784 0.892
Guangxi 0.357 0.464 0.455 0.591 0.699
Hainan 0.361 0.651 0.587 0.701 0.824
Sichuan and Chongqing 0.319 0.437 0.436 0.570 0.702
Guizhou 0.295 0.403 0.398 0.506 0.638
Yunnan 0.310 0.415 0.434 0.556 0.652
Shaanxi 0.374 0.497 0.515 0.642 0.733
Gansu 0.335 0.444 0.451 0.558 0.689
Qinghai 0.374 0.469 0.494 0.590 0.829
Ningxia 0.358 0.485 0.510 0.654 0.963
Xinjiang 0.436 0.554 0.554 0.662 0.834
Mean 0.410 0.550 0.572 0.721 0.833
Coefficient of Variation (%) 20.751 21.543 26.458 25.561 20.200
Notes. Higher value of index implies best performer. Author's calculation

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Table A13: Rank of knowledge and health development quality index (KHDQI), Chinese provinces
Province
KHDQI
1980-84
KHDQI
1985-89
KHDQI
1990-94
KHDQI
1995-99
KHDQI
2000-2004
Beijing 0.704 0.964 0.963 1.088 1.288
Tianjin 0.616 0.829 0.812 0.974 1.195
Hebei 0.510 0.678 0.664 0.781 0.908
Shanxi 0.573 0.743 0.703 0.824 0.959
Inner Mongolia 0.504 0.663 0.645 0.740 0.867
Liaoning 0.665 0.862 0.795 0.899 1.063
Jilin 0.606 0.783 0.720 0.831 0.979
Heilongjiang 0.568 0.728 0.685 0.816 1.003
Shanghai 0.730 0.932 0.900 1.033 1.243
Jiangsu 0.488 0.638 0.600 0.728 0.927
Zhejiang 0.472 0.648 0.626 0.770 0.960
Anhui 0.436 0.572 0.541 0.687 0.824
Fujian 0.482 0.619 0.592 0.728 0.874
Jiangxi 0.480 0.607 0.577 0.672 0.829
Shandong 0.477 0.639 0.627 0.759 0.897
Henan 0.477 0.627 0.592 0.719 0.864
Hubei 0.520 0.667 0.610 0.713 0.883
Hunan 0.473 0.617 0.566 0.697 0.879
Guangdong 0.501 0.654 0.616 0.739 0.940
Guangxi 0.465 0.601 0.555 0.685 0.862
Hainan 0.430 0.812 0.646 0.742 0.892
Sichuan and Chongqing 0.407 0.555 0.526 0.650 0.855
Guizhou 0.374 0.509 0.475 0.584 0.762
Yunnan 0.399 0.528 0.514 0.614 0.761
Shaanxi 0.471 0.623 0.617 0.721 0.852
Gansu 0.423 0.556 0.537 0.635 0.787
Qinghai 0.486 0.585 0.575 0.640 0.766
Ningxia 0.444 0.581 0.558 0.670 0.831
Xinjiang 0.583 0.730 0.685 0.771 0.944
Mean 0.509 0.674 0.639 0.756 0.920
Coefficient of Variation (%) 17.400 17.289 17.575 15.668 14.406
Notes. Higher value of index implies best performer. Author's calculation

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Table A14: Rank of economic development quality index (EDQI), Chinese provinces
Province
EDQI
1980-84
EDQI
1985-89
EDQI
1990-94
EDQI
1995-99
EDQI
2000-2004
Beijing 0.267 0.370 0.633 0.826 0.856
Tianjin 0.203 0.267 0.411 0.668 0.720
Hebei 0.094 0.123 0.188 0.285 0.331
Shanxi 0.102 0.137 0.181 0.308 0.380
Inner Mongolia 0.047 0.072 0.121 0.189 0.325
Liaoning 0.095 0.132 0.199 0.300 0.377
Jilin 0.091 0.123 0.179 0.255 0.297
Heilongjiang 0.083 0.112 0.159 0.237 0.275
Shanghai 0.262 0.387 0.622 0.823 0.896
Jiangsu 0.097 0.134 0.212 0.326 0.485
Zhejiang 0.097 0.143 0.241 0.412 0.536
Anhui 0.071 0.093 0.129 0.207 0.237
Fujian 0.100 0.141 0.222 0.357 0.429
Jiangxi 0.071 0.090 0.117 0.180 0.214
Shandong 0.090 0.126 0.193 0.336 0.357
Henan 0.083 0.109 0.148 0.249 0.247
Hubei 0.095 0.122 0.157 0.232 0.264
Hunan 0.088 0.110 0.146 0.206 0.217
Guangdong 0.101 0.149 0.286 0.430 0.505
Guangxi 0.054 0.072 0.106 0.175 0.199
Hainan 0.113 0.140 0.222 0.290 0.429
Sichuan and Chongqing 0.061 0.081 0.108 0.180 0.215
Guizhou 0.060 0.078 0.106 0.153 0.220
Yunnan 0.054 0.076 0.120 0.200 0.253
Shaanxi 0.080 0.103 0.134 0.217 0.289
Gansu 0.070 0.092 0.120 0.178 0.293
Qinghai 0.060 0.102 0.149 0.226 0.635
Ningxia 0.087 0.136 0.196 0.297 0.831
Xinjiang 0.046 0.069 0.118 0.191 0.370
Mean 0.097 0.134 0.204 0.308 0.403
Coefficient of Variation (%) 56.147 57.876 65.422 57.401 50.652
Notes. Higher value of index implies best performer. Author's calculation

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Table A15: Development quality index (DQI), Indian states
state
DQI
1980-84
DQI
1985-89
DQI
1990-94
DQI
1995-99
DQI
2000-2004
Andhra Pradesh 0.355 0.395 0.459 0.619 0.725
Assam 0.333 0.368 0.399 0.515 0.570
Bihar 0.289 0.333 0.376 0.488 0.502
Gujarat 0.409 0.478 0.548 0.790 0.892
Haryana 0.371 0.421 0.505 0.687 0.768
Himachal Pradesh 0.407 0.471 0.507 0.698 0.830
Karnataka 0.411 0.452 0.499 0.679 0.777
Kerala 0.616 0.702 0.783 1.142 1.438
Madhya Pradesh 0.275 0.312 0.377 0.543 0.568
Maharashtra 0.466 0.552 0.585 0.759 0.878
Orissa 0.301 0.336 0.386 0.543 0.602
Punjab 0.445 0.516 0.587 0.836 0.999
Rajasthan 0.291 0.336 0.388 0.539 0.623
Tamil Nadu 0.407 0.475 0.550 0.765 0.895
Uttar Pradesh 0.280 0.329 0.377 0.502 0.564
West Bengal 0.395 0.451 0.492 0.620 0.683
Mean 0.378 0.433 0.489 0.670 0.770
Coefficient of Variation (%) 23.394 23.816 22.455 25.050 29.985
Notes. Higher value of index implies best performer. Author's calculation

Table A16: Knowledge and Health development quality index (KHDQI), Indian states
state
KHDQI
1980-84
KHDQI
1985-89
KHDQI
1990-94
KHDQI
1995-99
KHDQI
2000-2004
Andhra Pradesh 0.475 0.525 0.582 0.693 0.748
Assam 0.461 0.510 0.545 0.635 0.673
Bihar 0.392 0.454 0.496 0.587 0.617
Gujarat 0.540 0.622 0.673 0.816 0.852
Haryana 0.498 0.556 0.641 0.729 0.748
Himachal Pradesh 0.564 0.646 0.680 0.810 0.922
Karnataka 0.553 0.603 0.639 0.754 0.801
Kerala 0.852 0.975 1.055 1.233 1.510
Madhya Pradesh 0.366 0.413 0.461 0.573 0.634
Maharashtra 0.609 0.721 0.723 0.837 0.908
Orissa 0.409 0.460 0.512 0.616 0.652
Punjab 0.582 0.657 0.708 0.795 0.862
Rajasthan 0.393 0.448 0.498 0.612 0.696
Tamil Nadu 0.543 0.635 0.698 0.813 0.843
Uttar Pradesh 0.368 0.434 0.479 0.588 0.625
West Bengal 0.537 0.616 0.656 0.763 0.796
Mean 0.509 0.580 0.628 0.741 0.805
Coefficient of Variation (%) 23.911 24.322 23.112 21.816 26.532
Notes. Higher value of index implies best performer. Author's calculation

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Table A17: Economic development quality index (EDQI), Indian states
state
EDQI
1980-84
EDQI
1985-89
EDQI
1990-94
EDQI
1995-99
EDQI
2000-2004
Andhra Pradesh 0.106 0.152 0.255 0.247 0.390
Assam 0.035 0.046 0.071 0.126 0.188
Bihar 0.064 0.076 0.135 0.140 0.132
Gujarat 0.149 0.248 0.384 0.406 0.577
Haryana 0.102 0.175 0.275 0.327 0.475
Himachal Pradesh 0.048 0.088 0.140 0.239 0.355
Karnataka 0.110 0.162 0.253 0.278 0.419
Kerala 0.077 0.080 0.195 0.516 0.737
Madhya Pradesh 0.088 0.127 0.272 0.264 0.238
Maharashtra 0.189 0.267 0.393 0.319 0.470
Orissa 0.064 0.070 0.126 0.205 0.280
Punjab 0.181 0.328 0.461 0.524 0.776
Rajasthan 0.073 0.120 0.194 0.203 0.261
Tamil Nadu 0.123 0.166 0.298 0.363 0.595
Uttar Pradesh 0.108 0.141 0.208 0.164 0.244
West Bengal 0.085 0.099 0.151 0.154 0.240
Mean 0.100 0.147 0.238 0.280 0.398
Coefficient of Variation (%) 43.911 53.205 45.290 44.191 48.657
Notes. Higher value of index implies best performer. Author's calculation

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Table A18: Chinese regional inequality in development quality index (DQI)
Chinese regional inequality Contribution to inequality
1980-84 1985-89 1990-94 1995-99 2000-04 1980-84 1985-89 1990-94 1995-99 2000-04
Development
Coast 1.46 1.44 1.84 1.34 1.00
Inland 0.78 0.63 0.67 0.53 0.32
Between Coast-Inland
0.19 0.27 0.54 0.65 0.52 14.96 21.15 30.35 40.44 44.02
Within Coast-Inland 1.04 0.96 1.18 0.90 0.62 81.60 75.39 66.18 56.13 52.59
Gini 7.70 7.57 8.74 8.53 7.40
Theil 1.28 1.27 1.79 1.60 1.18
Polarization Index 15.49 21.91 31.44 41.88 45.57
Knowledge and Health
Coast 1.14 1.05 1.01 0.67 0.59
Inland 0.76 0.59 0.58 0.40 0.23
Between Coast-Inland 0.11 0.14 0.15 0.13 0.14 10.06 14.58 16.05 20.34 26.58
Within Coast-Inland 0.90 0.77 0.74 0.50 0.37 86.49 82.10 80.59 76.30 69.98
Gini 7.17 6.75 6.73 5.69 4.90
Theil 1.04 0.93 0.92 0.65 0.52
Polarization Index 10.42 15.08 16.61 21.04 27.52
Economic
Coast 7.89 8.10 8.46 5.12 3.86
Inland 2.16 1.88 3.16 1.68 3.84
Between Coast-Inland 1.74 2.50 4.85 4.69 4.72 24.06 30.08 41.06 51.16 51.00
Within Coast-Inland 5.25 5.51 6.55 4.16 4.22 72.48 66.47 55.50 45.39 45.57
Gini 15.12 16.41 20.74 19.95 20.95
Theil 7.24 8.30 11.81 9.17 9.26
Polarization Index 24.92 31.15 42.53 52.99 52.81
Notes. All the figures are in percentage. Inequality measures are computed using population weights in China and India at provincial and state level respectively. Polarization is defined as the ratio of
between to between and within GE.

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Table A19: Indian regional inequality in development quality index (DQI)
Indian regional inequality Contribution to inequality
1980-84 1985-89 1990-94 1995-99 2000-04 1980-84 1985-89 1990-94 1995-99 2000-04
Development
Coast 1.48 1.44 1.39 1.84 2.55
Inland 32.30 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00
Between Coast-Inland
1.31 1.26 1.02 0.98 1.30 46.11 77.12 42.28 34.45 33.04
Within Coast-Inland 1.36 1.45 1.24 1.68 2.39 47.65 88.29 51.47 59.33 60.70
Gini 11.79 11.92 10.71 11.44 13.31
Theil 2.85 1.64 2.42 2.83 3.94
Polarization Index 49.18 46.62 45.10 36.74 35.25
Knowledge and Health
Coast 1.58 1.74 1.54 1.41 2.34
Inland 1.02 0.85 0.78 0.49 0.53
Between Coast-Inland
1.33 1.29 1.05 0.84 0.85 45.13 43.58 41.81 40.36 30.87
Within Coast-Inland 1.44 1.48 1.30 1.11 1.74 48.61 50.17 51.93 53.39 62.91
Gini 11.83 11.89 10.68 9.54 10.08
Theil 2.95 2.96 2.51 2.08 2.77
Polarization Index 48.14 46.48 44.60 43.05 32.92
Economic
Coast 5.57 8.25 5.97 5.51 14.83
Inland 5.76 9.80 7.41 10.33 5.06
Between Coast-Inland
1.00 0.88 0.79 1.58 3.22 13.83 8.38 9.98 16.98 27.15
Within Coast-Inland
5.75 8.96 6.59 7.16 7.89 79.91 85.38 83.77 76.76 66.60
Gini 19.86 23.69 21.14 21.84 24.71
Theil 7.19 10.49 7.87 9.33 11.85
Polarization Index 14.76 8.94 10.64 18.12 28.96
Notes. All the figures are in percentage. Inequality measures are computed using population weights in China and India at provincial and state level respectively. Polarization is defined as the ratio of
between to between and within GE.

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Table A20: Indian regional inequality in development quality index (DQI)
Indian regional inequality Contribution to inequality
1980-84 1985-89 1990-94 1995-99 2000-04 1980-84 1985-89 1990-94 1995-99 2000-04
Development
BIMARUO 0.04 0.03 0.01 0.09 0.22
Rest 1.21 1.36 1.19 1.73 2.39
Between
BIMARUO-Rest
1.75 1.68 1.39 1.34 1.79 61.33 102.75 57.63 47.17 45.47
Within
BIMARUO-Rest
0.92 1.03 0.87 1.32 1.90 32.42 62.60 36.12 46.57 48.26
Polarization Index 65.42 62.14 61.47 50.32 48.51
Knowledge and Health
BIMARUO 0.08 0.06 0.05 0.03 0.08
Rest 1.29 1.46 1.30 1.23 2.11
Between
BIMARUO-Rest
1.77 1.67 1.39 1.05 1.05 59.99 56.32 55.20 50.26 38.00
Within
BIMARUO-Rest
1.00 1.11 0.97 0.90 1.54 33.75 37.42 38.50 43.43 55.75
Polarization Index 63.99 60.08 58.91 53.64 40.53
Economic
BIMARUO 2.44 3.08 3.14 2.37 2.39
Rest 6.38 9.07 6.76 6.56 5.90
Between
BIMARUO-Rest
1.35 2.02 1.47 2.76 5.20 18.81 19.25 18.68 29.57 43.87
Within
BIMARUO-Rest
5.39 7.82 5.91 5.99 5.91 74.93 74.51 75.06 64.17 49.88
Polarization Index 20.07 20.53 19.93 31.54 46.80
Notes. All the figures are in percentage. Inequality measures are computed using population weights in China and India at provincial and state level respectively. Polarization is defined as the ratio of
between to between and within GE.