Title: Regional differences and convergence of resources carrying capacity: a comparison of nine provinces and municipalities in China

Authors: Chang-Feng Huang; Jian Yu

Addresses: School of Economics and Management (SEM), Tsinghua University, Haidian District, Beijing 100084, China ' School of Economics, Renmin University of China, Haidian District, Beijing 100872, China

Abstract: This paper applies an improved resources carrying capacity model established by Huang and He (2012), and estimates a single and composite resources carrying capacity, and uses sigma convergence, beta convergence and club convergence to investigate the dynamics of resources carrying capacity in nine provinces and municipalities in China from 1978 to 2008. Our results show that there exists time domain and regional characteristics in sigma convergence and club convergence of carrying capacity in China. But, the growth of carrying capacity of nine provinces and municipalities in China is beta absolute convergence.

Keywords: resource carrying capacity; regional differences; convergence test; time domain feature; regional characteristic; comparison; China; demographics; natural resources; ecology; economic growth; energy rsources; convergence theory; coal; crude oil; natural gas; hydro power.

DOI: 10.1504/IJGEI.2013.061786

International Journal of Global Energy Issues, 2013 Vol.36 No.2/3/4, pp.210 - 224

Received: 21 Feb 2013
Accepted: 08 Aug 2013

Published online: 12 Jul 2014 *

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