Fig. 5

Government allocation of funding in sample prefectures, 2018. Note: †For Harbin (Heilongjiang), the statistical yearbook only reports the hukou population (which differs from the permanent population used for other units). Therefore, per capita fiscal data cannot be derived and the prefecture is omitted here. ‡Per capita GDP data are for entire prefectures, not excluding the units as suggested in the first column. §In Changsha and Yiyang, central funding was combined with provincial funding and not separately reported. For Changsha, the central and provincial funding covers areas excluding Ningxiang and Liuyang while the prefectural funding covers all areas in Changsha. Therefore, different population data were used to derive per capita fiscal data. Data source: Fiscal data were collected from the prefectural-level documents listed in Additional File 1 (i.e., doc-PREF-01 to doc-PREF-34). Other data were collected from a mix of provincial and prefectural statistical yearbooks, supplemented with county-level statistical bulletins