Infrastructure and regional economic development in rural China

Infrastructure affects rural development through many channels, such as improved agricultural productivity, increased rural nonfarm employment, and rural migration into urban sectors. However, the role of infrastructure has not been paid enough attention in the literature due to lack of reliable data on various infrastructure indicators. By using newly available detailed data on rural infrastructure from the Agricultural Census and other official sources, this paper uses a traditional source accounting approach to identify the specific role of rural infrastructure and other public capital in explaining productivity difference among regions, throwing new lights on how to allocate limited public resources for both growth and regional equity purposes. (C) 2004 Published by Elsevier Inc.