Capital Stock Estimates for China’s Regional Economies: Results and Analyses

The lack of capital stock statistics for empirical research on the Chinese economy has for a long time been one of the major impediments. Though many authors have attempted to derive their own data series, most authors have focused on investigations at the national level and their findings are not without controversies. Few studies have provided estimates of capital stock for China’s regional economies. This paper adds to the literature in several ways. First, it presents a critical review of the methods and findings in the existing literature. Second, it proposes an alternative approach to estimate China’s regional capital stock values. Finally, the derived capital stock series are applied to examine growth, disparity and convergence in China’s regional economies.