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This paper examines the productivity advantage of large cities for creative industries (CIs) in China. Using Chinese firm‐level data for CIs from 2012 to 2014, we find that agglomeration economies, rather than firm selection, determine the difference between the productivity distributions of CIs in large and small cities. There are heterogeneous effects of agglomeration economies, with stronger impacts on productive firms and firms in broadcasting and TV & film. We also find that the productivity advantage of large cities for CIs is stronger when the cities have better communication and transportation infrastructure. Our results imply that the efficacy of place‐based policies for developing CIs depends on local infrastructure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The rapid increase in the number of returning Chinese scientists in past years has fostered an uneven geography of academic capital in China. Yet, this noteworthy issue has scarcely been discussed in recent literature. This paper attempts to testify whether there is an effect of urban amenities on the location choice of the returning scientists listed by China's Youth Scholar Thousand Talent Plan (YSTTP). Applying a city‐level conditional logit model of skilled migration, it is suggested that YSTTP scientists were substantially driven by urban amenities, such as the scientific environment, and public infrastructures and services for elite residence. In particular, considerable attention was paid to high‐level academic institutions, public transports, healthcare, income, and R&D capability. In contrast, YSTTP scientists were less sensitive to natural amenities and cost of living. Meanwhile, there is evident heterogeneity in the significance of urban amenities among different social groups in terms of their gender, age, whether they choose to work in Alma mater, and where they return from. This study contributes to bridging the current literature of scientific mobility with the amenity‐based approach, and ultimately provides a critical reference for the brain gain policy in China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using the difference‐in‐differences method, this paper employs a unique government land transaction dataset at the individual level and investigates how much extra government revenue is generated by the Shanghai Disney Resort through land value appreciation in nearby areas. The results suggest that the Shanghai Disney project significantly increases the nearby land value and then increases local extra government revenue. The average annual extra growth rate was 9.81% (37.01 billion CNY) of Shanghai government revenue from 2009 to 2015 through nearby land value appreciation after the approval of the Shanghai Disney project in 2009. There also exists a heterogeneous impact of the Shanghai Disney project on different types of land value. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the implications of the political incentive system reform for industrial land supply. We study the stronger political incentive for environmental protection in China that resulted from the Cadre Evaluation System (CES) reform in 2013. Using the interaction of municipalities' pre‐CES environmental quality with the introduction of CES reform, we document dirty cities experience a significantly larger decline in industrial land supply following the reform. Also, the reform may have a larger impact on dirtier industries and wealthier cities, and our baseline results are mainly driven by the local leaders who are more likely to be promoted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper investigates the institutional mechanism behind increasing local government debts and default risk in the last decade in China. Using prefectural‐level data from 2010 to 2017, we study the default risk on local government debts through the lens of spatial interactions. Empirical results identify positive spatial interactions of default risk among political neighbouring cities, but not for merely geographic or economic neighbours. Moreover, the spatial interactions vary with local leader's political incentives. These findings altogether suggest the spatial interactions of default risk is driven by political competition among local leaders. The study also rules out alternative explanations such as resource flow effects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The advent of the "information age" ushered in renewed expectations of systematic urban spatial structure transformation. However, few studies have quantitatively assessed these changes, especially the decentralisation of manufacturing employment. This paper tests hypotheses regarding the decentralisation–centralisation effect of information and communication technology (ICT) on manufacturing. Further, the work employs an IV‐GMM estimation technique to estimate the models, to alleviate potential bias brought by endogeneity. The results suggest that the adoption of ICT is highly related to the decentralisation of manufacturing employment on the city‐proper scale in China. The conclusion drawn is that ICT has shaped the manufacturing decentralisation of cities in China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the role of selective migration policies in the self‐selection of migrants, taking China's specific household registration (hukou) system as a case study. We first incorporate the hukou system into the self‐selection framework, demonstrating that it leads to a U‐shaped selection pattern of migrants from inland to coastal regions. Based on four periods of census data in China, we further employed the binary logit and conditional logit models to verify our proposed theory. The results imply that the hukou system influences migrant selection through restricting hukou‐related social amenities and distorting return to education by wage discrimination. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses whether high‐speed rail (HSR) construction in China promotes urban economic growth, and it uses social network analysis (SNA) and a panel threshold model. We provide robust evidence that HSR networks have non‐linear effects on the urban economy. Urban location and transportation hub status change as the density of HSR networks increases, and from 2008 to 2017, the national average annual growth rate of the weighted degree centrality (WDC) was 44.93%. We find the WDC and betweenness centrality (BC) have positive influences on urban economic growth. However, HSR network expansion reduces the economic benefits of HSR because the marginal contribution of new HSR lines to economic productivity decreases and there is a crowding out effect caused by excessive agglomeration. HSR networks can promote the economy of Western China to a greater extent and can promote the economy more in small cities than in large and medium‐sized cities. These findings can help the government rationalize its strategy for designing HSR lines in various regions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigates determinants of science and technology parks (STPs) performance in China. We estimate dynamic panel‐data models on a sample comprising 53 STPs for 2008–2018. Foreign direct investment and human capital impact labour productivity and innovation of STPs and explain differences in performance among them. We find evidence for beta‐ and sigma‐convergence of labour productivity and beta‐, but not sigma‐convergence of innovation. Our study provides novel insights for research on STPs and innovation policy regarding heterogeneity in performance of STPs, and specifically, some evidence concerning formation of "clubs" of STPs based on the city‐tier system in China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We examine the convergence of innovation activity across Chinese provinces and untangle how such activity has evolved between 1987 and 2020. Our study reveals which factors matter for innovation and how the significance and relative importance of different factors changed over time. To capture this evolution, we distinguish between three key time periods and identify the existence of temporal effects. We further find that depending on the time‐period, regional innovation activity in China has developed in at least three innovation convergence clubs. We offer useful insights, with theory and policy implications, of the roots of regional innovation convergence and the causes of geographical disparities in China's innovation activity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]