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The article focuses on China which features a decisive victory in eliminating poverty and follow a strategy of coordinated regional development. Topics include reports that China made progress on regional development while maintaining stability and examines that the regional economies have grown at a relatively slow but steady pace.

Brain drain has long been a concern. However, little is known about the brain drain within a country. China is a developing country which is experiencing not only overseas brain drain but also a domestic cross-regional and cross-departmental flow. In this study, we investigate the flow of high-level talent (HLT) given the background of constructing world-class universities and disciplines (WCUDs) in China and its dynamic mechanisms, and then we discuss its potential implications. The results show that over the past four decades, eastern China has been a net-inflow area, and the northeastern and midwestern regions saw a net outflow. The eastern region shows more internal regional flow. Furthermore, a large amount of HLT has flowed from scientific research institutes to colleges and universities (CUs). Regional socioeconomic gaps, imperfect systems and inadequate management are the main reasons for the flow of HLT. Regional HLT flow is not as serious as expected, but irrational flow will probably aggravate the already interregional disparity in educational resources and human capital accumulation as well as regional unbalanced development. Therefore, some measures should be taken to fight irrational high-level talent flow. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The urban system has been a prevailing research issue in the fields of urban geography and regional economics. Not only do the relationships between cities in the city system exist in the form of rankings, but also in a more general network form. Previous work has examined the spatial structure of the urban system in terms of its separate industrial networks, such as in transportation and economic activity, but little has been done to compare different networks. To rectify this situation, this study analyzes and reveals the spatial structural features of China's urban system by comparing its transportation and economic urban networks, thus providing new avenues for research on China's city network. The results indicate that these two networks relate with each other by sharing structural equivalence with a basic diamond structure and a layered intercity structure decreasing outwards from the national centers. A decoupling effect also exists between them as the transportation network contributes to a balanced regional development, while the economic network promotes agglomeration economies. The law of economic development and the government both play important roles in the articulation between these two networks, and the gap between them can be shortened by related policy reforms and the improvement of the transportation network. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A case study is presented of a regional development model for valley economies in the mountain areas of Beijing, China. The nature and framework of the valley economy model are described and the development of the model, which is specific to the mountain areas of Beijing, is analyzed. Five different valley economy models applied in the Beijing mountain areas are compared. The major purpose of the valley economy model is to develop the regional economy, including the selection of appropriate industries, the allocation of industrial space, the establishment of supply chains and the integration of various industries. Pilot experiments using the valley economy model have been conducted in seven counties (districts) in Beijing: Pinggu, Huairou, Changping, Mentougou, and Fangshan districts, and Yanqing and Miyun counties. Five models for developing the Beijing mountain areas have been explored, including: creative cultural industries, characteristic industry clusters, the promotion of large tourist areas, natural scenic tourism and folk cultural tourism. Each model has its own unique features and potential to help in the regional development of mountain areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This aim of this study was to determine the extent of any convergence in house prices across China, using a regional panel data set. The results showed little evidence of convergence across the regions, although there is evidence of a ripple effect starting in Shanghai, Guangzhou and Beijing, although only the former two regions are affected by the distance from them to the respective cities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mega-region development has been identified as one of the top national agenda items in China. Aggressive institutional policies have been put in place to guide and encourage the formation and development of mega-regions. This article analyzes how this development model is being adopted in China and identifies the factors that contribute to such institutional arrangements, using the transformation in the Pearl River Delta (PRD) mega-region as an example. This article argues that mega-region development in China is an institutional response to global and regional economic transformation and significantly affects the regional development outlook. It uses a strong top-down characteristic to enforce the senior government's political and economic objectives. Findings are drawn from reviewing government policies, analyzing socioeconomic data, and discussing intrinsic issues before recommendations are proposed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Regional differences in customer satisfaction were examined, with a focus on the relationship between economic development and customer satisfaction. The moderating roles of regional economic development on the associations between customer satisfaction and its antecedents were also examined. Participants were 11,042 consumers in 8 durable goods categories across 21 cities in China. Results based on hierarchical linear models suggest that customer satisfaction with products is negatively related to regional economic development. In addition, it was found that the impacts of expectation and perceived value on customer satisfaction varied across regions depending on level of economic development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper applies growth equations to examine the impact of region-specific factors on China's growth in the 1980s and 1990s. In particular, this study focuses on investigating the role of capital formation, initial conditions, labour productivity, human capital, openness, infrastructure, foreign capital and economic reform in China's regional growth. It is found that those variables account for 70-90% of China's growth in the past decades. The robustness of the findings in this study is tested by estimating alternative models. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The use of geographic information system (GIS) techniques for rigorous analysis of regional inequality in China remains limited. In this article, the authors utilize recent data and GIS and spatial statistical techniques to analyze changing patterns of regional inequality in China from 1978 to 2000. It also identifies the changing clusters of regional development in China. They illustrate that regional inequality in China is sensitive to development trajectories of the provinces, and that conventional measures of regional inequality mask geographical clustering.

The article demonstrates that local rural markets in China have retained many of the characteristics of the markets of traditional China despite their adaptation to the country's rapidly modernizing rural economy. The author expounds on the seminal work on marketing in rural China by G. William Skinner. It will be observed that marketing patterns in rural China diverge strongly from what Skinner's theory predicted would occur as the Chinese countryside modernizes.