Industrial production efficiency and its spatial disparity among the TVEs of China: A DEA analysis

Since the introduction of the rural household contract responsibility system in 1978, the proportion of Chin’s total industrial output produced by the township and village enterprises (TVEs) had increased from 9 to 42 percent. It is this rapid growth of the TVEs that has created a competitive industrial environment in China, which in turn has forced all other forms of enterprise to be more efficient in production. However, the development of TVEs, like the development of the Chinese economy as a whole, is characterised by great regional imbalances. This paper empirically investigates the changes in the industrial production efficiency of the TVEs in 1987 and 1992 with particular reference to its spatial disparity across the provinces and regions.