1 论文标题
China’s Internal Borders: Evidence from the Business Cycle Correlations across Chinese Cities

2 作者信息
Ying Fang, Li Qi, and Zhongjian Lin
3 出处和链接（比如，NBER working paper No.11000）
王亚南学院工作论文WP20100726  http://wise.xmu.edu.cn/paperInfor.asp?id=175

4 摘要
We measure the correlations between two cities’ real GDP growth rates (a measure of
business cycle correlations) to capture the degree of segmentation across China’s
provincial and regional borders.  This type of segmentation can be caused by local
protectionism as well as other economic and geographic factors that affect business cycle
correlations between two cities.  After controlling these other factors, we are able to pin
down the border effect that is due to local protectionism: administrative border effect.  
We find that the inter-provincial administrative border effect first rose and then gradually
declined in the period between 1991 and 2007.  Further, its increase coincided with the
introduction of the Tax Sharing System reform, which started in 1994.  This
administrative border effect declined steadily in recent years as the tax reform was fully
instituted. Our analysis shows that China’s reform path (under market-preserving
federalism) did not create a persistent provincial “administrative border effect” that
debilitated market forces.