Public Services Equalization in Urbanizing China: Indicators, Spatiotemporal Dynamics and Implications on Regional Econo

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Public Services Equalization in Urbanizing China: Indicators, Spatiotemporal Dynamics and Implications on Regional Economic Disparities Zekun Li1 · Shenjing He2 · Shiliang Su1 · Guie Li1 · Fei Chen3 Accepted: 1 June 2020 © Springer Nature B.V. 2020

Abstract Public services equalization is closely related to local economic and social development. Hence, it is crucial to explore the changing dynamics of public services equalization and its correlation with regional economic disparities. We first examine the changing spatiotemporal patterns of public services provision and local economic performance at the provincial level across China from 2003 to 2017, using a set of indicators and the Mann–Kendall test. It is found that different types of public services are divergent in both temporal trend and geographical locations. However, both income and expenditure have been significantly increased for all provinces during the study period. Second, we unravel the heterogeneous relationship between public services provision and local economy across time and space using the geographically and temporally weighted regression. Variance decomposition is further employed to quantify the relative contribution of public services provision to local economy. Results show that the impact of different types of public services on local economic system is divergent, which jointly affects local economy system together with political and other economic factors. Thirdly, we use the Theil index and traditional least square regression to further examine the relationships between public services equalization and regional economic disparities. We find that public services equalization is correlated with regional economic disparities at the national level, yet their interrelation varies significantly in different regions. Taken together, through revisiting the role of public services equalization in regional economic disparities and unpacking its geographical and temporal heterogeneity, this study fills salient research gaps and informs policymaking towards a long-term goal of social equalization. Keywords  Public service · Social equalization · Geographically and temporally weighted regression · Theil index · Regional economic disparity

Electronic supplementary material  The online version of this article (https​://doi.org/10.1007/s1120​ 5-020-02405​-9) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. * Shiliang Su [email protected]; [email protected] Extended author information available on the last page of the article

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Z. Li et al.

1 Introduction As Douglas Yates the political scientist notes, “it is difficult to see how a government can solve its dramatic problems if it cannot solve its routine ones” (Yates 1977). As one of the routine items closely related to people’s daily lives, public services not only meet people’s basic needs but also improve their quality of life (Lineberry and Welch 1974; Erkip 1997). The term ‘public services’ was first proposed by the German new history school,