Abstract: Financial development has played an important leading role in the economic growth of the economy. It has reached a consensus in the academic community. The imbalance of regional financial development is one of the factors that restrict the coordinated development of China's regions. The financial convergence hypothesis refers to the process in which the financial development level of low-level economies catches up with and draws close to high-level economies in the long run, that is, the process in which the financial development gap of economies gradually narrows to zero. It provides a complete analysis paradigm for the study of development gap, which can directly show the degree of narrowing the gap between economies, and can give a reasonable explanation for the causes of inter-regional gap. It is of great significance to narrow the gap of regional financial development for coordinating the balanced development of regional economy. Based on the convergence hypothesis, this paper identifies the convergence of financial development at the overall, regional and provincial levels in China, and further explores the influencing factors of China's financial convergence process, so as to provide ideas for explaining the imbalance of regional financial development in China.
Firstly, in order to comprehensively measure the level of financial development in China, this paper selects multiple indicators at the three levels of banking, securities and insurance and uses the time series principal component analysis (GPCA) to construct a comprehensive evaluation standard. On this basis, this paper uses the nonlinear time-varying factor model to test the convergence of financial development at the overall, regional and provincial levels in China. The model breaks through the limitations of the homogeneity hypothesis of the traditional identification method, and can accurately identify the phenomenon of short-term divergence and long-term convergence, and can realize the endogenous division of the convergence group. Further, this paper identifies the existing financial convergence groups in China through the convergence endogenous recognition algorithm, and analyzes the distribution of convergence groups and the change of convergence path.
The results show that, first, under the premise of allowing the existence of heterogeneous convergence transition path, China's financial development does not have the characteristics of national convergence, and the four major economic regions of the east, middle, west and northeast also show the characteristics of dispersion. Secondly, this paper further identifies four financial convergence groups endogenously, indicating that China's financial development converges to four different steady-state levels. Thirdly, the distribution of convergence groups presents a pyramid distribution pattern of “fewer members of high-level groups and more members of low-level groups”, and there is a financial polarization phenomenon of “developed in the east, underdeveloped in the middle, west and northeast”. However, with the evolution process, the gap between groups has gradually narrowed. Based on this, this paper argues that the convergence group should adopt differentiated development strategies according to local conditions, and the group should build a development mechanism in which competition and cooperation coexist, so as to accelerate the speed of financial convergence and promote the coordinated development of financial levels in various regions.

Key words: financial development, convergence, club convergence, regional finance, nonlinear time-varying factor model

摘要： 本文基于非线性时变因子模型对我国30个省级地区2005—2018年的综合金融发展水平指数进行检验,通过收敛内生识别算法对我国现存的金融收敛集团进行识别,并进一步对收敛集团的分布以及收敛路径变化进行分析。研究结果发现,我国金融发展整体不存在收敛的趋势,东、中、西、东北四大经济区域也均表现出发散特征。本文进一步内生识别出4个金融收敛集团,其分布呈现“高水平集团成员少,低水平集团成员多”的金字塔式形态,且低水平收敛集团与高水平收敛集团间差距明显,存在“东部发达,中、西以及东北欠发达”的金融极化现象。基于此,本文认为收敛集团间应“因地制宜”地采取差异化发展策略,集团内应构建竞争与合作并存的发展机制,从而加快金融收敛速度,促进各地金融水平协同发展。

关键词: 金融发展, 收敛性, 集团收敛, 区域金融, 非线性时变因子模型