Abstract The regional difference enlarges much in Hunan province since 1992.Based on the basic theory of regional convergence and the neo-classical method,the Barro and Sala-I-Martin economic growth model is applied in this paper,and some modification are done to it according to the condition of Hunan province.Besides the GDP per capita,structure variables such as industrial structure,investment rate,location condition and policy are considered in the model to verify their influence on the regional growth.The result shows that,since the socialist market economic system has been implemented,the regional economic growth in Hunan province shows conditional convergence,and it increases with a rate of 1.93 percent per year,which is close to the rate of the country and is a reasonable convergence coefficient.The reason is that the regional difference of Htman province is less than that of the country,and the convergence rate is relatively lower in the less difference region than the larger one.
The growth of GDP per capita at municipal level in Hunan province tended to divergence from 1992 to 1997.From 1997 to 2002,the emergence of regional convergence was closely related to the perfection of socialist market economic system and Xiangxi autonomous prefecture being brought into the project of West Development.Therefore,development policies have a great influence on the regional convergence in Hunan province.So does geographical location.The improvement of location conditions will be able to accelerate huge accumulation of productive factors and promote regional development,so it's increasing rapidly.Industrial structure and investment environment have less impact on the regional convergence.Since the socialist market economic system was established in China,the industrial structure convergence in Hunan Province has become more and more serious,and industrial structure convergence in undeveloped regions causes the slow development of the whole region.Investment in west parts of Hunan province is on the slow side.The current investment distribution makes little contribution to the regional economic growth.
2005, Vol. 20 
