An empirical study on cultural heterogeneity and regional economic disequilibrium: evidence from Guangdong province of China

Abstract

Based on cultural heterogeneity, this paper divide Guangdong province into four cultural regions: Cantonese, Fukienese, Hakka and Tuhua. This paper use 1999-2016 years of county data to explore the impact of cultural heterogeneity on regional economic disequilibrium. The study found that the economic level of different cultural regions is significantly uneven. The economic level of the Cantonese culture area is far higher than that of the other regions, and the Tuhua culture area is slightly higher than the Hakka culture area, while the Hakka cultural area is slightly higher than the Fukienese cultural area. The cultural heterogeneity is still significant by controlling the location, traffic and economic policies. The long term effect of cultural heterogeneity is also significant by increasing time series data. The mechanism of cultural heterogeneity to regional economic disequilibrium is to reduce the level of trust, improve transaction costs and even impede the production of transactions.