This article interrogates the role of local Chinese governors in government-driven urbanisation. This process often involves local governments converting rural land to urban land rather than local ...governments incentivising rural-to-urban migration. This study proposes a method to find a proxy variable of government-driven urbanisation and performs an exploratory study of its impact on economic growth. Its empirical analysis is based on provincial data from 1996 to 2015, a period of intense urbanisation in China. The results show that urbanisation has had various effects on growth across different provinces, and that some provinces exhibit a phenomenon called ‘urbanisation without growth’. This may be because local governors push urbanisation too heavy that it can hardly generate positive effects, such as external consumption, technology diffusion, and a larger pool of urban labour. This is similar to the phenomenon of over-urbanisation experienced in some developing countries. As a main driver of over-urbanisation, government-driven urbanisation has typical Chinese characteristics, but this paper's findings still have significant implications for other emerging economies.
•Government-driven urbanization happens when governors force farmers to migrate into urban areas.•Government-driven urbanization results in over-urbanisation in Chinese provinces.•Chinese governors are inclined to interrupt the process of market-based urbanisation to boost economic growth.•Government-driven urbanization would impede regional economic growth.
At present, it is the most important period to achieve the dual carbon goal and China 's economic transformation. The Chengdu-Chongqing twin-city economic circle plan is an important national policy ...proposed to promote the high-quality economic development of western China. However, due to the influence of geographical location, the frequent natural disasters in the economic circle of Chengdu and Chongqing have become a problem that cannot be ignored in the process of economic development. Many studies have discussed the relationship between natural hazards and economic development or between resource utilization and economic development in megacities, but little attention has been paid to the relationship between the three in intra-city development. This paper takes three cities in Chengdu-Chongqing Economic Circle as examples. The environment-resource-economy related evaluation factors are selected from various aspects such as hazard, vulnerability, susceptibility and disaster prevention and mitigation capacity. And establish a suitable evaluation system for disaster risk assessment. At the same time, our study demonstrates the uniqueness of the study by taking different disasters in different regions as entry points. The results of the study show that, although the natural hazards that often occur in cities are not the same, there is a strong repetition of the characteristics that characterize the disaster (extreme) high risk areas. The occurrence of natural disasters has a significant impact on infrastructure, human safety and economic development and recovery in areas of high human activity. Moreover, the progress of energy conservation and emission reduction varies greatly among cities due to factors such as geographic location and natural resources, and there are still cases of uneven development, lagging industrial innovation and high dependence on energy for economic development. These results can help mega-city clusters to provide opinions on economic development, energy saving and emission reduction, disaster prevention and control, and other aspects. Provide reference for the government to rationally plan the economic and industrial layout in the future. Remind the relevant departments in high-risk areas that they should enrich emergency response measures and strengthen hazard screening. Improve disaster prevention and control capacity to reduce losses and promote the coordinated development of environment-resources-economy. This is of great significance and practical value for better understanding of the environment, utilizing natural resources, avoiding and mitigating losses from natural disasters, and realizing the dual-carbon goal.
•Analysis and research from different impact factors, evaluation of different types of disasters in different cities.•The high-risk areas of disasters in each city have the same characteristics.•The occurrence of natural disasters will inevitably have a great impact on economic development and recovery.•Small cities have limited resources and focus on the development of pillar industries, affecting planning and policies.•Cities still suffer from uneven development and lagging industrial innovation.
As the most important emerging transportation technology, high-speed rail (HSR) can reshape regional economic development patterns and exert an important effect on the ecological environment. Using a ...panel data set of 275 Chinese cities at the prefecture level and above from 2003 to 2014, this study is the first to adopt a continuous spatial difference-in-differences (SDID) model to investigate the effect and its mechanism of HSR service intensity on CO2 emissions. A series of robustness tests are performed, including the placebo test and using the propensity score matching method combined with the SDID (PSM-SDID) model. We also conduct a heterogeneity analysis using a spatial difference-in-difference-in-differences (SDDD) model. The results show that an increase in HSR service intensity significantly reduces urban CO2 emissions, resulting from the effects of transportation substitution, market integration, industrial structure, and technological innovation. Meanwhile, such an increase inhibits CO2 emissions in neighboring cities with a spatial attenuation boundary of 1000 km. On average, for every addition of 100 HSR trains in a city, the total CO2 emissions can be reduced by 0.14%. Moreover, the CO2 emission reduction effect of HSR is more significant in eastern China, large cities, and resource-based cities. However, higher levels of HSR service intensity in large cities and resource-based cities are not conducive to reducing CO2 emissions in neighboring cities. These findings can help to accurately evaluate the social benefits of expanding HSR networks and provide an important decision-making reference for climate governance during the era of HSR.
•We explore the effect and its mechanism of high-speed rail (HSR) on CO2 emissions.•We use a continuous spatial difference-in-differences model and China's urban data.•An increase in HSR service intensity significantly reduces urban CO2 emissions.•HSR curbs neighboring CO2 emissions with an attenuation boundary of 1000 km.•Every addition of 100 HSR trains in a city can reduce total CO2 emissions by 0.14%.
Using a 2015–2019 sample of Shanghai and Shenzhen A-share listed companies and the difference-in-differences method, this paper analyzes the effect of the implementation of China's environmental tax ...in 2018 on firms' environmental investments. The results show a significant increase in firms' environmental investments after the implementation of the tax. Further analyses examine variations in the effect according to ownership type, regional economic development level, and media attention. The positive effect is more significant for state-owned companies and companies subject to high media attention, but there is no obvious difference between companies in regions with different levels of economic development. Additional analysis reveals that government subsidies negatively affect firms' environmental investments, but the environmental tax reduces such subsidies and thus their inhibitory effect, increasing firms' environmental investments. Additionally, the results show that the environmental tax promotes firms' performance by increasing their environmental investments. This paper provides theoretical support and empirical evidence for the implementation and improvement of the environmental tax policy.
•This paper finds a significant increase in firms' environmental investments after the implementation of the tax.•The positive effect is more significant for state-owned companies and companies subject to high media attention.•This paper also tries to reveal the mechanism of environmental tax on firms' performance by increasing their environmental investments.•This paper provides theoretical support and empirical evidence for the implementation and improvement of the environmental tax policy.
Resource-based cities (RBCs) are cities that have emerged from the utilization of natural resources and are dominated by resource-based industries. Industry is the leading economic activity of ...resource-based cities. However, industrial land in resource-based cities is faced with the challenges of inefficient use, to which little attention has been paid. Because RBCs are the location of leading economic activity, improving industrial land use efficiency is pivotal in these cities. This study used sub-vector Data Envelope Analysis (DEA) to calculate the industrial land use efficiency (ILUE) of China's 109 resource-based cities from 2006 to 2015. The empirical results proved that there was redundancy of industrial land in most of China's RBCs, but the overall degree of redundancy is decreasing. There were obvious differences in ILUE among different regions, different resource types and different development stages. Factors influencing ILUE were analyzed using the Tobit model. Regional economic development, industrial development and science and technology development had significant positive effects on ILUE, while the labor structure and the ownership structure of enterprises have significant negative effects. The conclusions that are drawn from the results support recommendations to improve ILUE for RBCs. The ILUE should be taken as the guidance for the layout of industrial land use in a RBC and should be incorporated into new industry spatial development strategy planning.
•This study calculates industrial land use efficiency of China's resource-based cities.•The oil and gas-based cities have the highest mean value of ILUE.•There are obvious differences of the ILUE among different regions.•The regional economic development has significant positive effect on the ILUE.
During the last five years, we can observe a soaring academic interest in the concept of smart specialization. A burgeoning literature emerged both conceptually and empirically. In this paper, we ...pause for a while and take stock of six critiques so far identified in this emerging literature. The aim is to provide a critical lens for future research on smart specialization strategies and processes. We argue that: (1) Smart specialization is a confusing concept, as what it really means is diversification; (2) It is largely predicated on a conventional science and technology (S&T) model of innovation and regional economic development, whereas socio-ecological innovation and social innovation, have only been implicitly mentioned, at best; (3) It is the continuation of cluster policies, rather than a brand-new policy instrument; (4) It contains a delusional transformative hope, although the entrepreneurial discovery process could very likely lead to lock-ins; (5) Structurally weak regions might be less likely to benefit from smart specialization; and 6) more rigorous measurements of smart specialization are still needed. By engaging systematically with these six issues, we not only aim to improve the effects of smart specialization as a policy programme, but also to contribute to its conceptual advancement.
It is often hypothesized that transportation infrastructure investment have a positive impact on economic growth and that economic growth also imposes needs for further infrastructure development. ...This paper proposes a structural equation model (SEM) to comprehensively consider the bi-directional relationship between multimodal transportation investment and economic development. To account for the complicated interactions between transportation investment and economic growth, travel demand is added as an endogenous variable in the model system. In addition, the SEM model system is formulated with variables that reflect transportation supply in geographically adjacent areas to investigate spatial spillover effects. Empirical analysis based on a panel dataset at the reginal level in China from 1986 to 2011 is conducted. Results show transportation investment in the current region or other regions have impacts on economic growth, but are obviously different at national level and provincial level. These differences can be associated with phases of economic development, transportation investment policy, transportation infrastructure service level, spillovers from other regions, as well as reform policies carried out by the central government.
•We developed a structural equation model to comprehensively consider the bi-directional relationship between multimodal transportation investment and economic development.•Spatial spillover effects are taken into account in the model and verified to exist from the results.•The magnitude of the economic impacts of multimodal transportation investment differs at the regional level.
Objective
There is growing evidence that certain regional personality differences function as important drivers of regional economic development (e.g., via effects on entrepreneurship and innovation ...activity). The present investigation examines the impact that regional variation in the trait courage has on entrepreneurship.
Method
Using data from a new large‐scale internet‐based study, we provide the first psychological map of courage across the United States (N = 390,341 respondents from 283 U.S. metropolitan regions). We apply regression analyses to relate regional courage scores to archival data on the emergence and survival of start‐ups across American regions.
Results
Our mapping approach reveals comparatively high levels of regional courage in the Eastern and Southern regions of the United States. Regional courage scores were positively related to entrepreneurial activity, but negatively related to start‐up survival—even when controlling for a wide variety of standard economic predictors. Several robustness checks corroborated these results. Finally, regional differences in economic risk‐taking accounted for significant proportions of variance in the relationship between regional courage and entrepreneurship.
Conclusion
Our results suggest that regional courage may contribute to a pattern of enterprising and also risky economic behavior, which can lead to high levels of entrepreneurial activity but also shorter start‐up survival.
We examine the environmental consequences of two regional economic development (RED) policies that aimed to develop the economy of the relatively underdeveloped upper Pearl River (UPR) regions in ...Guangdong Province, China. Applying the triple‐difference analysis to annual county‐industry‐level data, we find that the two RED policies caused higher growth in industries with high water pollution than in industries with less water pollution in the UPR regions. The second RED policy with environmental regulations was effective in restraining the new entry of firms in high‐pollution industries into the UPR regions but failed to drive existing high‐pollution firms out of the UPR regions. Firms' location decisions were driven by the more favorable tax regimes and less stringent pollution regulations in the UPR regions.
Who drives regional economic development in entrepreneurial ecosystems of different types? Using longitudinal data on 267 NUTS-3 European regions during the period 2008-16, we apply the ...entrepreneurial ecosystem theoretical framework to study how entrepreneurial ecosystem type moderates the relationship between a variety of entrepreneurship and regional economic development. It is found that regional economic development proxied by gross value added per resident responds differently to solo self-employment, job creators and new-firm birth rates as well as changes in a share of productive high-growth entrepreneurship across different entrepreneurial ecosystems. The findings have implications for regional and national policy-makers and scholars who study the geography of entrepreneurship.
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