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Copyright of Papers in Regional Science is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Papers in Regional Science is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Papers in Regional Science is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Papers in Regional Science is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Papers in Regional Science is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

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]

Copyright of Papers in Regional Science is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Papers in Regional Science is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

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]

Copyright of Papers in Regional Science is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

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]

An introduction is presented in which the editor discusses various reports within the issue on topics including volatility of Chinese economic activities, globalization and industrial performance in China, and regional disparities and productivity in China.

Copyright of Papers in Regional Science is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This paper analyses the relationship between community attributes and the subway home-price capitalization effect, asking whether the magnitude of the subway proximity premium is affected by neighbourhood economic status and location. Using longitudinal data from Beijing, the paper estimates that decreasing a community's distance to a subway station by 10 per cent increases the housing price per square metre by 0.2 per cent ~ 0.9 per cent. The paper also shows that, subway capitalization effect is around 0.1 per cent ~ 0.2 per cent lower for communities that have higher quality and charge a 1 Yuan higher property management fee. Moreover, the analysis also reveals that the subway capitalization will decrease by around 0.08 per cent as a community's distance to the central business district (CBD) increases by 1 km. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Government-funded urban amenities provide significant values to land markets. This paper uses spatial econometric techniques to recover the puzzling heterogeneity in capitalized values of local amenities such as higher education facilities, transport and environmental amenities. On top of its policy implications, this paper differentiates between non-spatial models and spatial models to allow spatially varying marginal-price estimates and reflect the subtle ways that land markets capitalize local amenities. Our results provide heterogeneous estimates of capitalized amenity values that would affect land development, illustrating the linkage between government-funded amenities and the intensity of land development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Our existing knowledge of the links between urban growth and commuting patterns are dominated by cases from developed countries. This paper examines the impact of urban growth on workers' commutes using the case of Beijing, which is undergoing rapid economic and spatial restructuring. The results of an analysis of household survey data show that clustered and compact urban development in planned sub-centres is likely to reduce suburban workers' need for a long-distance commute to the city centre when the workers' socio-economic characteristics, the level of transport accessibility and household preferences for residential location are taken into account. Workers employed in the manufacturing sector tend to have shorter commutes and travel within the planned suburban sub-centres. This reveals that the decentralization of employment in the manufacturing sector provides more opportunities to enhance the spatial matches between household residential and job location choices. Household preferences for residential location have an effect on commuting patterns, and high-income workers are likely to accept longer commutes in order to fulfil their residential preferences. Dramatic urban restructuring, in conjunction with changes in lifestyle, is creating new commuting patterns in the rapidly growing cities of China. Resumen El estado actual del conocimiento sobre los vínculos entre el crecimiento urbanístico y los patrones de desplazamiento al trabajo está dominado por ejemplos de países desarrollados. Este artículo examina el impacto del crecimiento urbano en los desplazamientos al trabajo en una ciudad como Pekín, la cual está siendo objeto de una rápida reestructuración económica y espacial. Los resultados del análisis de datos de un muestreo de hogares mostró que es probable que un desarrollo urbano compacto y agrupado en torno a sub-centros planificados a propósito de este modo reduzca la necesidad de largos desplazamientos al trabajo hasta el centro de la ciudad, si se tienen en cuenta las características socioeconómicas de los trabajadores, la facilidad de acceso a transporte y las preferencias de cada hogar en cuanto a la zona residencial. Los trabajadores empleados en el sector manufacturero tienden a realizar desplazamientos más cortos y a viajar dentro de los sub-centros suburbanos planificados. Esto revela que la descentralización del empleo en el sector manufacturero proporciona más oportunidades de mejorar la correspondencia espacial entre la elección de la zona residencial y la del puesto de trabajo. Las preferencias familiares en cuanto a la zona residencial tienen un efecto en los patrones de desplazamiento al trabajo, siendo más probable que los empleados con ingresos más altos estén dispuestos a realizar desplazamientos más largos a cambio de satisfacer sus preferencias residenciales. Una dramática reestructuración urbana, junto con cambios en el estilo de vida, está creando nuevos patrones de desplazamiento al trabajo en las ciudades chinas de rápido crecimiento. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

New Economic Geography (NEG) models predict that locations with market access advantages have higher wages and larger labour inflows. Using comprehensive prefecture-city level data for China, the study estimates a wage equation derived from a NEG model. The results support the NEG explanation for wage disparities across cities. An application of shock experiments on 230 prefecture-cities in China shows that the average effect of income changes differs greatly across locations. In particular, income shocks generated in core cities have a higher average impact in the rest of the country than shocks generated elsewhere. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the causal relationship between financial development and the urban–rural income gap in China. Using a bootstrap Granger panel causality analysis, the result indicates that financial development influences urban–rural income gap mainly in Eastern China. The high level of financial development in this region enables rural areas to increase its income. Our results also confirm the existence of the financial Kuznets curve in Eastern China where urban–rural income gap would be first increased and afterwards decreased by financial development. The financial development itself is not dependent on urban–rural income gap as it largely depends on government policies and economic growth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Papers in Regional Science is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Papers in Regional Science is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Papers in Regional Science is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Cities are not only connected through conventional infrastructure, but also through digital infrastructure. This paper tests whether digital connectivity patterns follow traditional ones. Using a generalized spatial interaction model, this paper shows that geography (and distance) still matters for an extensive set of world cities. With a view to the rapidly rising urbanization, the attention is next focused on the emerging large cities in China to test the relevance of distance frictions − next to a broad set of other important explanatory variables − for digital connectivity. Various interesting results are found regarding digital connectivity within the Chinese urban system, while also here geography appears to play an important role. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Papers in Regional Science is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Drawing upon township-level data on high-tech firms of Nanjing, China, this paper adopts a spatial econometric approach to examining the existence of spatial dependence and heterogeneity in the location processes of high-tech firms. The results show that some locational determinants of neighbouring townships exert significant impacts on the attractiveness of a certain township for high-tech firms. Besides, the marginal effects of some locational determinants are found to vary across space. In general, these results point to the need to account for both inter-territorial spillovers and cross-spatial variance in the investigation of factors that influence high-tech firm location. [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]

This paper examines the impact of land tenure security perceptions on rural-urban migration decisions of rural households, using data collected in Minle County in Northwest China. We find that tenure security perceptions play a significant role in household migration decisions in villages without well-functioning land rental markets but not in villages where the land rental markets are more developed. In villages with underdeveloped land rental markets, households that expect that no land reallocations will occur within their village in the near future are less involved in migration, while households that attach a greater importance to land certificates in protecting land use rights are more involved in migration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper estimates the impact of industrial agglomeration on firm-level productivity in Chinese manufacturing sectors. To account for spatial autocorrelation across regions, we formulate a hierarchical spatial model and use a Bayesian instrumental-variable approach. We find that agglomeration of the same industry (i.e., localization) has a productivity-boosting effect, but agglomeration of urban population (i.e., urbanization) has no such effect. In addition, the localization effect increases with the educational levels of employees and the share of intermediate inputs in gross output. These results may suggest that agglomeration externalities occur through knowledge spillovers and input sharing among firms producing similar manufactures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Papers in Regional Science is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

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]

This paper explores the impacts of home appliances going to the countryside ( HAGC) in a spatial general equilibrium model. Main findings include the following: ( i) if the manufactured goods are highly differentiated, HAGC reduces the urban-rural real income gap and improves the social welfare; ( ii) if there exists rural-urban migration, the change in the social welfare due to HAGC will experience a U-shaped curve as transportation cost decreases; and ( iii) when the manufactured goods are highly differentiated, or fairly standardized under either very high or low transportation cost, price subsidy should be expanded to all manufactured goods. Otherwise, the optimal policy is laissez-faire. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper documents important changes in the Chinese macroeconomic environment over the last three decades. The volatility of Chinese aggregate economic activities has fallen dramatically by nearly 60 per cent during its reform period, a phenomenon that coincides with the ' Great Moderation' that occurred in most industrialized economies. We employ a provincial panel-data method to investigate the driving forces of the increasing macroeconomic stability in China. We examine the empirical relationship between output volatility and various economic, policy, institutional, and demographic factors. Our results suggest that the acceleration of reform toward the market economy, which began around 1994, generally leads to a widespread output volatility reduction across Chinese provinces. Both state-owned enterprise reform and human capital accumulation are important determinants of output volatility since the mid-1990s; they play an important role in explaining the provincial differences on volatility reduction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We analyse per capita GDP convergence among 28 Chinese provinces between 1952 and 2005 using the distribution dynamics approach. Compared with previous studies, we provide a more complete view by including some additional information such as the asymptotic half-life of convergence, mobility indices and the continuous version of the ergodic distributions. In addition, we also extend the analysis to evaluate whether patterns could differ if weighted by either the population living in each province or their economic sizes, together with the existence and magnitude of spatial spillovers. The unweighted, unconditional analysis corroborates and supplements previous findings, especially those indicating that convergence patterns differ strongly under either pre- or post-reform trends. Both the weighted and space-conditioned analyses indicate that convergence could be much faster when these factors are introduced in the analysis. Implications are especially relevant when weighing by population, since results indicate that the number of people escaping from relative poverty would be much higher than the figure predicted by the unweighted analysis. Resumen Analizamos aquí la convergencia del PIB per cápita entre 28 provincias de China entre 1952 y 2005, utilizando el enfoque de evolución dinámica de distribuciones. En comparación con estudios previos, proporcionamos una visión más completa mediante la incorporación de información adicional como la semivida ( half-life) asintótica de la convergencia, índices de movilidad y la versión continua de las distribuciones ergódicas. Además, ampliamos nuestro análisis a evaluar si pudiera haber diferencias en los patrones si se hiciera una ponderación basada en la población que vive en cada provincia o en sus tamaños económicos, junto con la existencia y magnitud de spillovers espaciales. El análisis incondicional, no ponderado, corrobora y complementa resultados de estudios anteriores, especialmente aquellos que indican que los patrones de convergencia difieren en gran medida bajo tendencias pre o post reforma económica. Tanto los análisis de naturaleza espacial como los ponderados indican que la convergencia podría suceder mucho más rápidamente si en el análisis se introdujesen estos factores . Las implicaciones son especialmente relevantes para la ponderación por población, ya que los resultados indican que el número de personas que podrían lograr salir de la una pobreza relativa podría ser mucho mayor que la cifra pronosticada por el análisis no ponderado. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Regional inequality is severe in China since regional development is uneven due to various initial conditions and government policies. We employ unit root tests allowing for structural breaks to alternative inequality measures from 1952 to 2000. Empirical results indicate that (1) the regional inequality is trend stationary with structural breaks rather than following a random walk. Thus, ignoring structural changes might leads to incorrect inference and misleading policy implications; (2) the break points are associated with episodic events in Chinese economic history such as the Cultural Revolution and market reforms. This implies that the policies had a long-lasting and fundamental effect on the inequality. Resumen. La desigualdad regional en China es pronunciada debido a un desarrollo regional dispar causado por un número de condiciones iniciales y políticas gubernamentales. Empleamos pruebas de raíz unitaria que permiten rupturas estructurales ( structural breaks) en medidas de desigualdad alternativas desde 1952 al 2000. Los resultados empíricos indican que (1) la desigualdad regional es de tendencia estacionaria con rupturas estructurales en lugar de seguir un paseo aleatorio ( random walk). Por tanto, el ignorar cambios estructurales podría llevar a una inferencia incorrecta e implicaciones políticas engañosas; (2) los puntos de ruptura están asociados con acontecimientos episódicos de la historia económica china como la Revolución cultural y las reformas del mercado. Esto implica que las políticas tuvieron un efecto duradero y fundamental en la desigualdad. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigates spatial dependence and mechanisms of regional development in Greater Beijing, China by employing spatial statistical techniques. We have detected positive, strengthening global spatial autocorrelation from 1978 to 2001, and found such strengthening is the result of newly formed/extended clusters in the area. The local analysis recognizes local regimes of two-tier urban-rural spatial structure at the beginning of the reform period. While the urban-rural divide was lessening due to the reform, a north-south divide has emerged because of local natural conditions and development trajectories. Regarding mechanisms of regional development, ordinary least squares analysis is constrained by the existence of significant spatial autocorrelation among spatial units. Analytical results reveal that an error spatial regression model is a more appropriate alternative due to possible mismatch between boundaries of the underlying spatial process and the spatial units where data are organised. In 1995 and 2001, the signs of all the regression coefficients remained the same for both OLS and spatial models. However, their magnitude and significance change. Specifically, foreign direct investment and fixed-asset investment became less influential in the spatial model, while local government spending emerged as more influential. Este estudio investiga la dependencia especial y los mecanismos de desarrollo regional en el Gran Beijing, China, empleando técnicas estadísticas espaciales. Hemos detectado una autocorrelación espacial global en aumento y positiva desde 1978 al 2001, y hallado que dicho aumento es el resultado de clusters formados/ampliados recientemente en el área. El análisis local reconoce regimenes locales de estructura espacial urbana-rural de dos niveles al inicio del periodo de reforma. Mientras que la separación urbana-rural fue disminuyendo con la reforma, ha aparecido una separación norte-sur por condiciones naturales locales y trayectorias de desarrollo. Respecto de los mecanismos de desarrollo regional, el análisis de mínimos cuadrados ordinario (OLS) se ve restringido por la existencia de una autocorrelación espacial significativa entre unidades espaciales. Los resultados de análisis revelan que un modelo de regresión del error espacial es una alternativa más apropiada debido a una posible disparidad entre los límites del proceso espacial subyacente y las unidades espaciales donde están organizados los datos. En 1995 y en 2001, los signos de todos los coeficientes de regresión permanecieron iguales para OLS y modelos espaciales. Sin embargo, su magnitud y significancia cambian. En particular, la inversión extranjera directa y la inversión en activos fijos pasaron a ser menos influyentes en el modelo espacial, mientras que el gasto del gobierno local apareció más influyente. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An agricultural production function is estimated using a Chinese county-level dataset along with associated geographic information. County-specific output-input elasticities are computed using the geographically weighted regression (GWR) and mapped with the geographical information system (GIS). A comparison of the ordinary least squares and GWR estimates confirms that allowing spatial variation in the parameters improves model fit of the agricultural production function, and provides valuable insights into the relative importance of inputs in different regions. Moran's indices reveal the spatial dependence of output per unit of land, and four inputs across regions. Mappings of GWR estimates help to detect a few clusters of high output-input elasticities: for labour in the Northeast, North, Southwest and Northwest China, for land in the Central and Southwest, for mechanical power in the North, Northwest and coastal area of the East and South and for fertiliser in the East. The county-specific scale elasticities suggest constant return to scale is likely to hold in the Central, East, Southwest and South. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Papers in Regional Science is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This article attempts to reconcile previous conflicting findings about the effects of labour cost on the location decisions of foreign investors in China. A conditional logit model is calibrated with its compatible disaggregated firm-level Japanese FDI data. It is hypothesised that previous counter-intuitively positive relationships between labour cost and incoming FDI in China may result from the failures to properly control spatial inflation differentials, labour quality, and quality of life. A Hausman-McFadden test is also conducted to test the robustness of the calibrated models. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study uses Ripley's K‐function to examine the diversity in cross‐region labor mobility under various border effects from heterogeneous policies. Based on manufacturing labour data for Chinese cities, we emphasize the importance of border effects in the formation of regional integration with a Ripley's K‐function analysis. The statistical measures indicate that the amount of labour mobility involves distance‐decay effects of the border. However, the variety in the distance‐decay of the border effects differs considerably between each pair of adjacent regions. For this reason, transport costs caused by natural or economic geography probably explained most of the differences in border effects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using 2003–2016 panel data of 278 prefecture‐level Chinese cities, we analysed the relationship between highway construction, resource flow, and urban–rural income gap using multiple spatial econometric models. Overall highway construction has narrowed the urban–rural income gap owing to better population mobility and goods flow. However, while goods flow has narrowed the gap, population mobility has aggravated it. A regional difference in the impact of highway construction also exists, that is, the effect is negative in central and western cities, but positive for eastern cities. Moreover, China's "4 trillion" fiscal and currency stimulus plan has strengthened highway construction in narrowing the income gap. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study proposes the use of push‐pull‐mooring model to investigate the main factors behind farmers' willingness to withdraw from rural homesteads with unique survey datasets taken from a pilot area in China. Our empirical results, which were derived from partial least squares structural equation modelling, mostly support our theoretical hypotheses, suggesting that policy cognition is a meaningful moderating factor that reflects farmers' individual attitudes, environmental influences, and social norms and plays a significant role in farmers' decision‐making processes. Our findings have strong policy implications for developing a "strategy of rural vitalization" and reforming the current rural homesteads system in China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We analyse a sample of nearly 300 prefectural‐level cities in China, among which about half historically had city walls. We document that cities that had walls in late imperial China have higher population and employment density today, despite that their walls have long gone. Using data from various sources, we test whether a historically walled city's higher density can be explained by a historical urban core, a different industry composition, a different local geography, a compact urban shape, or more valuable rural land in surrounding areas. We find that historically walled cities still have higher density after taking into account all of these factors, which we interpret as evidence of economic persistence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

International organizations approach economies classification differently. This investigation aims to explore a classification framework, named as thresholds of economy groupings, to obtain the thresholds for easily classifying economies. The framework is applied to classify provinces in mainland China, and the resulting thresholds provide instructional values reflecting macroeconomic situation. One result is that the average value of the relative gross domestic product per capita is roughly equal to the threshold between groupings 3 and 4 of five ones during 2009–2014, which implies regional disparities and balanced policy requirement in China. Furthermore, dynamic development tracks are described as different kinds of shapes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study focuses on the role of local climate conditions in spurring interregional migration in China over the period 2000 to 2010. We developed a robust empirical approach based on a correlated random effects model and a prefecture‐level panel dataset which allows us to account for both within province migration flows and prefecture‐specific characteristics. Empirical results reveal that climate conditions are important determinants of migration in China. Specifically, prefectures with warmer winter, cooler summer, and more available sunshine are more attractive to migrants. Economic factors such as income level and employment opportunities are also important drivers of population growth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We study empirically the effects of five different dimensions of agglomeration – specialization, diversity, related variety, unrelated variety, and city size – on the survival chances of new entrepreneurial firms in China. Consideration is further given to studying the mediating effects of local subsidies on new firm survival given different existing local industrial structures in those regions. In support of the ‘regional branching’ hypothesis, we find that increasing local related variety has a stronger positive effect on new firm survival than other types of agglomeration. We also find that receiving comparatively fewer subsidies motivates firms to seek out and benefit from local existing economies, which in turn, positively influence their chances of survival. By contrast, agglomerated firms that receive relatively more subsidies tend to be more likely to face financial distress leading to eventual market exit. The findings thus reveal that both the intensity and the location of state support matters in terms of optimizing positive agglomeration effects on firms' post‐entry performance and survival. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study estimates how highways affected industrial development in China's peripheral regions between 1998 and 2007, a period during which China experienced rapid growth in highway mileage. Highways between major cities pass through some counties but not others. Based on this difference in counties' access to highways, we conduct a difference-in-difference propensity score matching estimation, with the treatment variables being counties' highway connection status and their industrial performance before and after being connected to a highway. We find that highways promote industrial development in counties with higher output and greater investment levels. Moreover, highways have differential impacts across industries and regions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study develops a method to decompose total national indirect value added effects (induced by final demand) into intraregional effects and interregional spillovers. The decomposition is applied to China's 2002 and 2007 interregional input-output tables with foreign-owned processing exports separated from normal exports. First, we find that interregional spillovers account for one quarter to one half of the total national indirect value added multipliers in 2007, with the largest spillovers occurring for the coastal regions. This finding is important when explaining regional value added generation and thus has real implications for regional policy programmes. Second, we develop a new measure, namely, 'net interregional value added spillovers' to position China's individual regions in the global production chains. This measure shows that upstream regions in the Centre, Northwest and Southwest of China are net recipients of interregional value added spillovers generated by foreign exports in coastal regions. Over time, this observation becomes more pronounced. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Applying the methodology developed by Duranton and Overman, we analyse localization and dispersion of firms in China. Using a unique and detailed dataset on manufacturing firms in China, we are able to follow the changes in location patterns of firms between 2002 and 2008. Our analysis shows that firms in China are more localized than in the UK or Japan. Localization is comparable to that in the US, and takes place at relatively small scales that are consistent with the size of Chinese cities. Localization increases rapidly, even in the relative short period between 2002 and 2008, especially new entrants localize. Private firms, firms from Hong-Kong, Macao and Taiwan, and foreign firms are more localized than state-owned firms. Our findings are consistent with the notion that China is increasingly liberalizing its economy, enabling (profit seeking) manufacturing firms to benefit from agglomeration economies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An innovation-diffusion model was developed with agent-based modelling ( ABM); the model is used to study technical innovation and its diffusion process in China. The results are as follows: only a small fraction of firms conduct independent product-innovation, and most firms prefer imitation and/or purchases; most of the innovative firms are located in the East; approximately three or four technology generation products can exist in the market simultaneously; preferential policies can speed the process of innovation diffusion and improve economies of less developed areas, especially in Middle China; lastly, preferential policies can also improve the labour attractiveness of the Middle, West and Northeast and reduce emigration to the East. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines the role of globalization on industrial performance ( IP) in China. Using the data on 21 manufacturing sectors in six years (2005-2010) for 31 provinces/regions, we construct four IP indicators to estimate how globalization influences China's industrial capacity and technological composition through foreign direct investment ( FDI) and foreign trade. The panel estimating results suggest that both FDI and foreign trade generate strong positive effects on manufacturing output and manufacturing exports, but the contributions to industrial upgrading and technological complexity seem to be limited. At the regional level, the effect of FDI and trade on IP is numerically much smaller in the inland area than in the coastal area. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]