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Green innovation (GI) can enable win‒win style economic and ecological benefits. Using China's pilot scheme for the construction of the intellectual property protection (IPP) system as an example, this paper empirically tests the impact of IPP system reform on the GI level and its spatial spillover effect. The results show that IPP system reform has significantly promoted urban GI, indicating that a progressive reform model characterized by experimentalist governance is applicable to innovation policy practices in developing countries. The dynamic effect analysis shows that IPP system reform can be applied to continuously promote urban GI. The mechanism analysis shows that such use of IPP system reform can improve the level of urban GI by promoting investment and talent agglomeration, confirming the viewpoint of the institutionalist school. The heterogeneity analysis shows that IPP system reform plays a stronger role in promoting GI in peripheral cities than in central cities, in cities with lower rather than higher scientific and educational levels and in cities with weaker rather than stronger GI capacity. Consistent with the theory of institutional diffusion, IPP system reform has a significant spatial spillover effect, promoting GI activities in surrounding cities while working to improve the local GI level. This paper affirms the effectiveness of the pilot regional innovation policy with Chinese characteristics, with important theoretical significance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The cultural diversity brought by migrants has attracted widespread interest in recent years. This paper investigates the relationship between migrant cultural diversity and regional innovation by constructing panel data of provincial migrant cultural diversity and combining them with invention applications data from China's State Intellectual Property Office. The empirical results show that the migrant cultural diversity, measured by migrant's hukou and dialect respectively, has a positive impact on regional innovation. The effect still holds after a series of robustness tests and addressing endogeneity issues. Furthermore, the further analysis implies that the effects of the migrant cultural diversity in workers aged from 30 to 50, engaged in an innovative occupation, working in high market‐competitiveness or inclusive provinces are more pronounced. Our study supplements the current research on the relationship between migrant cultural diversity and regional innovation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The information services (IS) industry, which facilitates industrial transformation and upgrading, has emerged as a key driving force behind China's economic growth in recent years. More evidence can be accumulated from the Pearl River Delta (PRD), one of the largest transforming economies and IS gathering region in China. Firstly, this paper investigates the spatial patterns and dynamics of IS agglomeration in the PRD from 2003 to 2018, using the spatial autocorrelation analysis and Kernel density analysis. Secondly, a dynamic panel model with a system generalized method of moments (SYS‐GMM) estimation is employed to identify the factors significantly influencing the industry agglomeration economy. Results show that: (1) Large firms continue to gather in the core area of major cities, while smaller firms show a more balanced distribution from the core to periphery regions. The spatial proximity of firms proves that micro firms benefit less from industrial agglomeration compared to larger ones. (2) The effects of agglomeration externalities on economic growth remains positive, with labor force and commuting costs playing a vital role in the expansion of the IS industry. By integrating geo‐spatial information and empirical evidence, this study contributes to China's understanding and experience as a late‐developing country in the digital economy era. Finally, policies supporting small and medium enterprises (SMEs), improving the effectiveness of government subsidies, and strengthening industry‐university research cooperation are proposed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As land is one of the most important production factors in rural areas, it is becoming an important challenge for rural revitalization strategy to realize land value and promote the socioeconomic development of villages through the collective action of self‐organized collective land use. Various studies have discussed the relationships among land governance, rural revitalization and self‐organization, but few studies have focused on village cadres' roles and village rules. This paper aims to establish an analytical framework to explore these two operating mechanisms of self‐organization in collective land use. Two villages in eastern China and one village in western China are selected as typical cases to demonstrate how collective land use is self‐organized by village cadres' roles and village rules. The results indicate that village cadres play roles in the entrepreneurial spirit and resource access capacity to promote village economic and social development. In the utilization of collective land for farmers to live in peace and work happily, the configuration of rules at the village level to regulate the behaviour of villagers is a qualification on demand and "see who can take part", cost sharing and benefit sharing, graduated sanction and supervision. The analysis in this article may provide an understanding of the mechanism driving the promotion and improvement of land self‐organization, which has important policy implications for China and other developing countries adopting this mode to promote regional economic development in rural areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Whether regional integration can promote the urban agglomeration to attract foreign direct investment and expand the opening‐up is a question worthy of in‐depth discussion. This paper constructs a quasi‐natural experiment from the perspective of regional integration expansion in the Yangtze River Delta, using the panel data of 208 cities in China from 2005 to 2017. The main purposes are to examine and analyze the common trends and regional differences regarding the influences of regional integration on FDI in entire cities, incumbent cities, and new cities. Next, the internal mechanisms of expansion on FDI are explored. The results show that the regional integration exerted a significant positive effect on the FDI of the entire Yangtze River Delta. For different regions, the effect of regional integration on FDI in the incumbent cities was higher than that in the new cities. In terms of mechanisms, regional integration could affect FDI through industrial division mechanism and market unification mechanism, yet the role of economic connection mechanism exhibited regional differences. The conclusions of this paper bear important enlightenment for promoting the construction of regional integration in China and the high‐quality growth of FDI in the Yangtze River Delta. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Post‐reform China has experienced rapid urbanization and received much academic attention. However, few studies have focused on the overall characteristics of urban governance from both institutional and practical perspectives. This paper discusses the results of a content analysis of 79 cases collected during the first Awards for Best Urban Governance Practice in the Yangtze River Delta. This region is a pioneer of urban governance practice in China. The coding for the content analysis focused on four variables, including domains, actors, digitality, and duration, which were applied to the application forms for the award selection process. The statistical results demonstrate the characteristics of China's urban governance practices. (1) The government continues to dominate in China's urban governance, but the role of social organizations has become increasingly significant. (2) The content of China's urban affairs has transformed from economic growth to citizen‐oriented issues of livelihoods and livability. (3) New technology and digitality of new opportunities are leading China's urban governance transformation. (4) China's urban governance practices are a durable process for adaptation accumulation of experiences. This paper presents the characteristics and distribution of China's urban governance practices to lay the groundwork for future comparative urban studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Legal land transfer rights are the core of farmers' land property rights. This paper examines the urban‐rural income distribution effect of legal land transfer rights, revealing the reasons and mechanisms for legal land transfer rights to reduce the urban‐rural income disparity. Theoretical analysis shows that granting farmers legal land transfer rights and enhancing the protection of land transfer rights can help promote rural labor migration, thereby reducing the urban‐rural income disparity. This study uses panel data of prefecture‐level and above cities in China from 1999 to 2008 to examine the implementation of China's Rural Land Contracting Law in 2003 as a quasi‐natural experiment to construct a difference‐in‐differences (DID) model for the empirical test. The findings reveal that legal land transfer rights can effectively promote rural labor migration and reduce the urban‐rural income disparity due to labor migration. This paper's analysis provides a perspective for understanding the integrated development of urban and rural areas in developing countries. It indicates that guaranteeing farmers' land transfer rights is important for reducing urban‐rural income disparity, leading to urban‐rural integrated development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In global pattern reconstruction, ecological civilization construction and integrated urban–rural development in the new era as well as outlining a new framework for rural development and promoting efficient operation of the coordination mechanism for rural development are urgently required. This paper considers three northeastern provinces of China as an example, attempts to analyze the relationship between the subsystems of rural development, and examines the coupling coordination mechanism of population, land, and industry money in the four‐dimensional system. It explores the evolution path and defects of rural development in Northeast China under the background of transformation from a systematic perspective. We found that the coupling degree of "population‐land‐industry‐money" in rural Northeast China is high, while the coordination degree is low. The degree of spatial and temporal differentiation of the coupling coordination degree gradually increases, and the rural development of each province is highly unbalanced. The results also indicate that the main reasons for the low level of the coupling coordination degree are improved land development levels, a relative shortage of labor force, backward industrial development, and increasingly weak rural investment levels. Finally, this paper illustrates that the main solutions to rural revitalization are stimulating rural investment through policies and promoting the revival of agriculture, with financial support as the starting point, before establishing the linkage and mutual feed development of "population‐land‐industry‐money" in rural areas. The results will help countries, especially developing countries, to further consider methods toward achieving rural development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With rural decline becoming a global issue, the implementation of rural revitalization strategy has been turning into general starting points for many countries, especially in contemporary China. In this paper, we proposed a systematic analysis framework and a new evaluation index system for the implementation effectiveness of rural revitalization at the county scale. In addition, empirical research was conducted based on Jiangsu Province. The results indicated that the average value of the comprehensive index of implementation effects of rural revitalization in Jiangsu was 1.8198, and nearly 60% counties in the province were below this average. Also, the obvious disequilibrium and spatial differentiation laws were observed which presenting a stepwise advance from south to north, with the inland superior to the coastal. The five‐dimensional coordination status of rural revitalization in Jiangsu was relatively high, with the majority of counties reached at barely balanced state. A total of 21 counties were identified as problematic regions in Jiangsu through comprehensive overlay analysis. They were mainly located in northern Jiangsu, and could be divided into seven specific types. The proposed evaluation framework and indicator system might make up for the lack of effective reference systems and scientific quantitative indicators in the current county‐scale rural revitalization strategy practices. Moreover, the idea of identifying problem areas and the classification mode of rural revitalization goal levels proposed in this paper are also of great reference for other regions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The spatial system of rural residential areas is a key carrier to support the high‐quality development of rural residential areas. The effective identification of the space quality and its coordinated characteristics of rural residential areas are helpful to provide scientific basis for rural revitalization. From the perspective of space, the high‐quality development of rural residential area may be seen as a state of spatial coordination aiming at rural revitalization under the high‐level development of material space and social space. Taking Ningjin County of Shandong Province as the research area, this paper discusses the quality characteristics of rural residential areas in plains areas through representative case studies. For this purpose, the quality of material space and social space of these areas, and their coordinated development patterns, are obtained using the entropy weight TOPSIS, the mutual exclusivity matrix, and the coordinate quadrant method. Finally, the paper provides an identification of barriers by the obstacle degree diagnosis model and then proposes some quality improvement strategies for rural revitalization. The results show that: (a) The quality of material space and social space of rural residential areas in Ningjin County are medium and high. (b) The coordinated development patterns of material‐social space of rural residential areas in Ningjin County are characterized by medium‐quality‐led, low‐quality second‐class, high‐quality less. (c) The obstacle factors of high‐quality development of rural residential areas in Ningjin County are mainly reflected in the four dimensions of living space, production space, cultural space, and communication space. (d) Rural revitalization in Ningjin County can be achieved through the coordinated optimization of high‐quality development patterns, the focused improvement of medium‐quality development patterns, and the comprehensive consolidation of low‐quality development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As rural decline sweeps the world and draws public attention, it becomes necessary to consider the relationship between urbanization and rural development. The paper investigates this topic in China for the period 1989–2018. The research results find positive contribution of urbanization to rural economy in the research period but with a decreasing tendency. Compared to less developed areas, rural economy of developed regions has become less dependent on cities and can flourish in a larger context with the support of modern transportation and telecommunication technologies. However, those peripheral rural areas tend to face continuous and large‐scale rural–urban migration which has aggravated rural decline. Rural economic growth helps to decrease rural outmigration and people will stay in their hometown with available job opportunities to raise their families and maintain livelihood. The paper proposes balance‐friendly urbanization structure and diversified rural economy to improve rural resilience to meet the challenge of rural decline. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

By examining China's province‐level data, this paper uses governmental intervention theory to investigate the extent to which governmental policy interventions alleviate the impact of the COVID‐19 pandemic on local economic growth. Results suggest that stronger government intervention during COVID‐19 pandemic boost the economic recovery, and the effectiveness of governmental policy interventions is contingent on pandemic severity and local economic endowment. Specifically, facilitating effect of government intervention on economic growth is effective in all provinces, and the impact of government intervention is more pronounced in the province with more diagnosed cases, a high level of marketization and fiscal income. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the mid‐1980s, there has been a boom in world heritage site (WHS) inscriptions in China. Nevertheless, incumbent studies have not sufficiently explained why cities are enthusiastic about and capable of joining the boom. They tend to attribute such enthusiasm to the WHS values in heritage protection and tourism development. However, why stakeholders have motivations and opportunities to create the boom and what institutional environments support the craze are still yet to be answered. This paper investigates the boom through the concept of embeddedness to display how multi‐scalar institutional contexts in China stimulate and sustain WHS nomination. This study argues that the enthusiasm for WHS inscription is embedded in the political‐economic interests of stakeholders on different scales. At international and national levels, WHS nomination is regarded as a political tool to address diplomatic agendas, shape national honor, and balance regional development. On a local scale, WHS inscriptions can serve as a solid pretext for local states in China to fulfill their strong developmental imperatives and break financial constraints. These imperatives are embedded in China's transitional institutional environment, associated with power decentralization, central‐local fiscal rearrangements, and the top‐down system of cadre evaluation. In this context, local states are ambitious of initiating large‐scale development projects to boost local development. WHS nomination has become a pretext for local states to fulfill extraordinary development in tourism and other industries, such as the real estate industry. This study discloses the hidden political economy behind the WHS inscription boom using the cases of Wulingyuan and the South China Karst. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the impact of highway construction on the size distribution of manufacturing firms using Chinese firm and highway network data. I construct instrumental variables using historical and counterfactual road approaches to identify the causal effects of highway construction. I find that highway construction can increase firm size dispersion and market concentration. Areas near highways have a higher number of firms, more outsourcing activities, and more large firms; while areas further from highways have a higher share of new entry firms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Due to externalities and market failure, innovation activities are facing insufficient investment. Venture capital guidance funds (VCGFs) are an important policy implemented by China's government to guide private capital to participate in innovation and entrepreneurship activities, and it can have an important impact on scientific and technological innovation. Based on the panel data of 285 cities in China, this paper empirically analyzed the impact of VCGFs on innovation and its mechanism. VCGFs can significantly promote urban innovation and this role is sustained for three years following VCGF establishment. Further research shows that VCGFs do not have a direct impact on innovation but promote innovation by promoting the accumulation of innovative talent and capital, and the capital accumulation effect of VCGFs is the main path through which they promote urban innovation. Corruption is also a factor that restricts the effectiveness of an innovation policy. Thus, China's top‐down anticorruption campaigns can strengthen the ability of VCGFs to promote urban innovation. This paper opens the black box to show the mechanism through which VCGFs impact urban innovation, affirms the important role of the government in the regional innovation system, and clarifies the debate on government innovation policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates how human capital agglomeration interplays with institutional factors to affect migration destination choice in China. Over the last decades, China has experienced massive internal migration, substantial human capital investment, and the relaxation of its hukou system, thus providing us with a valuable opportunity to examine the role of human capital externality in migration choice. Based on rich data on province‐to‐province migration flows for different education and hukou groups, we find that migrants in China, especially highly educated and urban‐to‐urban migrants, have a strong preference to move to provinces with a high agglomeration of human capital. Further examination reveals that low‐skilled migrants in China are less likely to benefit from human capital agglomeration because of their lower ability to overcome hukou restrictions. Our findings raise the concern that labor migration under the skill‐biased hukou system would enlarge China's regional disparities in human capital and economic development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A substantial amount of research has examined the collaborations within technology‐based industries, but how technological intensity relates to the evolution of interregional research collaboration is less well understood. This paper investigates the dynamic changes of spatial structure and determinants of intercity research collaborations in the sectoral innovation networks of high‐tech industries contrasting to low and medium technology (LMT) industries in the Greater Pearl River Delta (GPRD), China. Using the sectoral patent application data over the period 2008–2016, the social network analysis results confirm a higher level of triangles in the co‐invention network of high‐tech industries than within LMT industries. Moreover, the empirical results through Exponential Random Graph Model (ERGM) show that, compared to LMT industries, collaboration in the co‐invention network of high‐tech industries is less sensitive to geographical and linguistic distance, while more subject to economic distance, regional educational level and government support with time. In addition, cognitive proximity and regional R&D intensity are both important prerequisite in the formation of these two collaborative networks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using micro merged data of China's customs transaction and National Bureau of Statistics Annual Surveys of Industrial Firms data, this paper analyzes the effect of industrial agglomeration on domestic value‐added in exports to gross exports (DVAR). It is found that industrial agglomeration significantly improves DVAR. Mechanism tests show that industrial agglomeration promotes DVAR by increasing the relative price of imported intermediate inputs and domestic inputs (relative price effect), as well as restrains DVAR by restraining cost markup of firm (cost markup effect). However, the promotion effect of the "relative price effect" is greater than the restraint effect of the "cost markup effect". In addition, accession to the World Trade Organization and exchange reform strengthen the promotion effect of industrial agglomeration. The result of dynamic decomposition shows that 74.62% of the industry's DVAR increase is attributed to the resource re‐allocation effect, which is an important channel for industrial agglomeration to promote DVAR. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Under the system of political centralization and economic decentralization, the expanding scale of land finance and the increasingly severe environmental pressure have jointly become crucial features of China's urban development. Therefore, it is of great practical significance to study the intrinsic mechanism of land finance on haze pollution for China's economy to achieve kinetic energy transformation and green development. This paper empirically analyzes the impact of land finance on haze pollution using a dynamic spatial Durbin model based on panel data of 269 prefecture‐level cities in China from 2004 to 2017. The statistical results show that haze pollution has a significant "snowball effect" and space spillover effect. Land finance has a significant positive effect on haze pollution. Land transfer both by agreement and by bid invitation, auction, and listing have significant positive effect on haze pollution. However, the promoting effect of land transfer by agreement on haze pollution is significantly higher than that of land sale by bid invitation, auction, and listing. Furthermore, regional heterogeneity implies that for cities in the eastern region, land finance is conducive to alleviating haze pollution. In contrast, for cities in the central and western regions, land finance significantly promotes haze pollution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research at the biophysical level constitutes the main approach to study the path through which climate influences infectious diseases, but the influence of socioeconomic factors on climate change and the spread of infectious diseases also cannot be ignored. In the current context, with its emphasis on carbon emission reduction, countries have begun to adopt "total control and trading" methods to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. This paper is based on the monthly relevant data of various provinces and cities from 2015 to 2019, adds the moderating variable of "carbon emission trading volume" based on current research results, establishes a static model of unbalanced panel fixed effects and a dynamic panel model, and deeply analyzes the impact of climate change on infectious disease popularity and the moderating effect of the carbon trading market. The study found that climate warming, frequent precipitation, and shortened sunshine duration will lead to an increase in the number of infectious disease cases and that the "carbon emission trading volume" variable plays a negative role in the positive correlation between climate change (temperature/precipitation) and the number of infectious disease cases. There are seasonal differences, and the moderating effect in summer/autumn is more obvious than that in winter/spring. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper uses the hazards model to estimate how market segmentation affects firm survival and accompanied resource allocation efficiency in China based on the manufacturing firm's data in 1998–2007 from the Annual Survey of Industrial Firms, considering the time‐varying and heterogeneous effect with the dynamics and characteristics of enterprises. According to the results, although firms benefit from market segmentation in the inauguration period, the protection diminishes afterwards and eventually becomes a hazard to the firm survival. This paper also takes one step further in finding that market segmentation may distort the resource allocation by protecting low‐productivity and low‐profitability firms from exiting the market. The findings suggest that local governments should strengthen cooperation to break administrative barriers and promote regional integrated development in order to realize the benefits of the domestic super‐large‐scale market. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How to realize the ecological protection and high‐quality development (HQD) of the Yellow River Basin (YRB) has become a great challenge for China. Based on panel data from 100 prefecture‐level cities in the YRB from 2006 to 2018, this innovative paper employs the System Generalized Method of Moments (SYS‐GMM) panel model and takes environmental regulation as a situational factor to empirically examine the influence mechanism of industrial agglomeration on HQD in the YRB. Our findings reveal that: (i) overall, a "U‐shaped" relationship exists between industrial agglomeration and HQD in the YRB, and environmental regulation plays a vital role in augmenting their relationship. (ii) Presently, the industrial agglomeration degree prevails on the left side of the threshold value, and the upsurge of industrial agglomeration degree still limits HQD. (iii) From the perspective of river basins, the influence of industrial agglomeration on HQD in the upstream is not significant, and the strengthening effect of environmental regulation is not noticeable. We find a "U‐shaped" relationship between industrial agglomeration and HQD in the midstream, along with notable differences in the correlation between industrial agglomeration and different dimensions of HQD in downstream. This paper helps in further understanding the influence of industrial agglomeration, environmental regulation, and HQD, as well as establishes efficient policies to promote HQD in the YRB and other similar river basins through industrial agglomeration in the context of environmental constraints. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article investigates the geography of the fintech industry in China's cities, which has not been systematically studied. It contributes to the literature on fintech by applying a new theoretical perspective—evolutionary economic geography. Improving on the existing literature on fintech that conducts a relatively general analysis of the role of technology in fintech development, evolutionary economic geography offers a detailed analysis that zooms in on the specific kinds of technology that determine fintech development. Moreover, this article contributes to the literature on evolutionary economic geography by systematically examining the role of market demand in developing a new industry. Based on a unique data set from 2003 to 2019, this article provides a city‐level analysis of the fintech industry in China. The results show that the fintech industry tends to develop in cities that have accumulated technologies in the fields of finance, e‐commerce, data sciences, and security. Moreover, there is a positive relationship between the development of the fintech industry and the demand for fintech services. Finally, this paper sheds light on the role of a favorable regulatory environment in fintech development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A clan is a group of families that are linked by patriarchal blood relationships with one common ancestor. Clans may help members to find jobs and set up businesses through blood‐based networks, but traditional male‐biased norms may lead to different effects on employment between genders. This paper examines the causal effects of clans on the employment statuses of men and women and the gap in the effects between genders. To mitigate the endogeneity issue, we employ the potential rain‐fed rice yield as an instrumental variable to obtain consistent estimates. We find that clans have positive effects on women's probabilities of participating in the labor market and having nonfarming jobs, while the effects on men are not significant. Clans have positive effects on male entrepreneurship but no effects on female entrepreneurship. The results are robust to a host of sensitivity tests. Moreover, we find that the findings are driven mainly by small cities, and clans have larger effects on regions where private enterprises dominate. The dynamic analysis indicates that the gender gap of clan effects decreases with the development of urbanization and marketization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the effects of urban spatial structure on urban employment growth in China by focusing on two dimensions, monocentricity, and compactness. Theoretically, the urban spatial structure affects urban employment through its effects on transportation costs, the concentration of economic activities, and urban amenities. Our empirical analysis verifies a nonlinear U‐shaped relationship between the monocentricity of a city and the growth rate of urban employment. Additionally, we find that a high level of compactness accelerates urban employment growth. Furthermore, cities that are more monocentric and more compact experienced more rapid urbanization during our sample period. We then use an instrumental variable approach to identify causal effects, and we obtain similar results. Our findings indicate that to accelerate the transfer of labor to urban sectors, governments in developing countries should pay attention to the planning of the urban spatial structure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper proposes a slacks‐based global DEA for Chinese urban green economic growth (GECO) and a global Malmquist index for decomposing its changes into three components, technology change (GTEC), scale efficiency change (GSEC), and pure technical efficiency change (GPEC). On this basis, using China's 286 city‐level panel data for the period 2006–2018, this paper then analyses the key driving factors of GECO and the regional heterogeneous effects of resource abundance on GECO. Results show that: (a) during the sample period, the city‐level GECO of China remains at a low level. GTEC and GSEC promote GECO, but much of this growth effect is offset by a reduction in GPEC; (b) there is negative effect of resource abundance on Chinese urban GECO. Specifically, in eastern, central, and western cities, the negative effect on GECO by adversely affecting GSEC and GPEC, while in northeast cities, the main transmission is GTEC; (c) because the key factors which affect the decompositions show different characteristics from regional heterogeneity perspective, this paper takes further step to formulate specific strategies and effective implementation of policies for the improvement of GECO in China's city level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite the considerable constraints of karst rocky desertification on the production and life of the locals and the regional economy, few studies have been conducted on areas with karst rocky desertification with the aim of exploring the balance between ecological governance and industrial development. In light of the promotion of featured advantageous industries to ecological governance and industrial development, this study aims to explore the mechanism of industrial revitalization in areas with karst rocky desertification to provide theoretical support for their industrial revitalization. Based on actor‐network theory, this paper presents a case study of Bashan village, a typical area in Guizhou province, China, with karst rocky desertification, to clarify the course of development of its Zanthoxylum bungeanum industry and propose a mechanism for its revitalization. The findings identify the main actors of the revitalization of the Z. bungeanum industry and reveal the driving forces behind it. Moreover, the study found that the industrial revitalization model is a bottom‐up process, which suggests strong endogenous dynamics. Through the revitalization of the featured industries, the results of the management of rocky desertification are transformed into economic output, which improved the livelihood of farmers and consolidated the effectiveness of management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using the annual data of Chinese manufacturing firms over the period of 1998–2007, this paper applies the Cox proportional hazards model and analyzes the impact of inter‐provincial market segmentation on the exit hazard of firms in China. This study shows that market segmentation increases the risk of enterprises exiting the market in China. Moving from the 10th percentile of the distribution of market segmentation (score of 0.0995) to the 90th percentile (score of 0.7084) would increase the exit probability of firms by 7.5 percentage points. An analysis of the mechanisms involved shows that market segmentation benefits are often outweighed by lower productivity and less incentive to innovate. Our study also demonstrates that inter‐provincial market segmentation facilitates the likelihood that state‐owned enterprises (SOEs) will survive, but not for non‐SOEs in China. A one unit increase in the degree of regional market segmentation will reduce the probability that SOEs withdraw from the market by 19.5% while increasing the probability that non‐SOEs will leave the market by 5.80%. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the impact of China's export trade on smog pollution. Based on provincial panel data from 2006 to 2016 in China, we use spatial econometric methods to empirically investigate the smog pollution effects of China's export trade from two dimensions, export scale and export structure. It has been found that smog pollution in various regions of China has obvious spatial correlation; China's export trade has a significant positive impact on smog pollution, whether in terms of export scale or export structure. After establishing different forms of spatial weight matrices and considering alternative indicators of smog pollution, the results of this paper are still robust. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mega‐city regions (MCRs) have emerged as the main spatial form of China's new urbanization strategy and become the basic spatial units participating in global and regional competition. However, MCRs are not equally capable of boosting regional economic development due to their different levels of development. Therefore, this paper adopts the concept of competitiveness as both a theoretical framework and an empirical model to evaluate the development status of China's MCRs. Based on a review of the existing literature, this paper proposes a multi‐tier evaluation system to calculate the competitiveness of 13 MCRs. The chosen indicators come from the six perspectives of economic development, human resources, infrastructural accessibility, integration into the global economy, capacity for scientific and technological innovation, and sustainable development. The results show that there are great disparities and regional inequalities in competitiveness across different MCRs. The Yangtze River Delta, Pearl River Delta, and Beijing–Tianjin–Tangshan MCRs are the first‐tier MCRs with the highest levels of development and have significant global influence as well. Chengdu–Chongqing, Shandong Peninsula, South‐central Liaoning, and Wuhan belong to the second‐tier of MCRs that show partial advantages and have significant regional influence. The remaining regions belong to the third‐ or fourth‐tier of MCRs that have relatively weak competitiveness. The competitiveness of MCRs largely depends on the concentration of core elements in core cities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Exploring the impact of transportation development on land price differences between cities is of great significance to help guide the optimal allocation of land resources and promote the coordinated and balanced development of regions. This paper first discusses how regional transportation development influences land price differences between cities at a theoretical level. Then, by taking 26 provincial regions in the Chinese Mainland as research units, the specific effects of provincial transportation development on land price differences between cities are examined empirically by constructing econometric models. The results show that: (a) in recent years, the price of urban land in China has increased significantly, and the land price differences between cities are increasing in most provinces; and (b) provincial transportation development has a narrowing effect on land price differences between cities, and the spatial spillover effect brought by transportation development deserves attention. In the future, the role of transportation development in narrowing regional land price differences should be taken into consideration to promote the balanced development of the land market and the coordinated development of regions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Taking the Yangtze River Delta in China as an example, this paper analyzes the spatial characteristics of passenger rail service in different stages, discusses the evolution of regional multi‐level spatial organization structure under the guidance of passenger rail, and explores the ways to realize efficient and well‐organized regional integration through modern railway infrastructure configuration. Rail transport leads to the formation of several urban subgroups within the Yangtze River Delta. The regional spatial structure is a multi‐level "core‐periphery" nested structure coupled with the internal spatial organization of subgroups and their mutual spatial correlation structure. The organization of intra‐subgroup and inter‐subgroup determine the evolution direction of the whole spatial structure. The development model of constructing a high‐speed railway network with the regional political and economic center cities as hubs has led to each subgroup that starts to rely on these cities to form clusters and achieve spatial reconstruction. In this process, the connection between the "core" areas and the "periphery" areas, as well as among the "periphery" areas within the spatial scope of each level has been strengthened. However, although the gap between the "core" areas and the "periphery" areas has narrowed, it still persists. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Large scale transport infrastructure constructions connect both large metropolitan cities as well as small peripheral cities. Transportation cost reductions facilitate the reallocation of labor factors between these asymmetric regions. Whether the results of labor reallocation narrow down the inter‐regional considerable discrepancies or reinforce the disparities in productivity is uncertain. This paper explores the opening of China's High‐Speed Railway (HSR) program as a quasi‐natural experiment to estimate the causal effect of the HSR connection on urban disparities in labor productivity. To address the selection bias caused by non‐random placements of HSR routes, we eliminate all metropolitan city nodes and construct a minimum spanning tree as the instrumental variable. Compared with peripheral cities not connected by the HSR, the labor productivity in connected peripheral cities decreases by 12.6% after the opening of the HSR. Using China Migrants Dynamic Survey (CMDS), we further find that the decline of labor productivity is driven by the relocation of high‐skilled labor from the HSR connected peripheral cities to the central cities. This article concludes that the HSR widens the productivity disparities between the large central metropolitan and small peripheral cities connected. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Northeast China has seen a remarkable transition from rustbelt to economic revival over the past decade. However, promoting sustainable economic growth is a major issue facing Northeast China after entering the middle‐income stage of development. Based on a panel data set of 34 prefecture‐level cities in Northeast China from 2001 to 2018, this paper constructs a human capital index in terms of both quantity (educational capital) and quality (health capital) and uses the generalized method of moments (GMMs) to explore the spatial–temporal effects of human capital on economic growth under the "middle‐income trap." The results show that a key factor keeping Northeast China in the middle‐income stage is the loss of highly qualified labor and that the previous attribution of the economic downturn to the population exodus is inaccurate. Although the results of this study indicate that the demographic dividend during the demographic transition period has ended in Northeast China and that the associated low‐cost advantage has been lost, the "talent dividend" can still be obtained by improving the level of human capital and thus promoting sustainable economic growth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Environmental regulation is an important tool for local governments to intervene in environmental governance. Based on 2008–2017 panel data on 289 cities in China, this paper analyzes the impact of environmental regulation on the supply efficiency of environmental public services and explores whether environmental decentralization changes the effect of environmental regulation. The results show that environmental regulation can significantly improve the supply efficiency of environmental public services, and this finding still holds after a series of robustness tests. The main reason is the improvement in green technology innovation capabilities caused by environmental regulation. Environmental regulation has a more significant positive effect on the supply efficiency of environmental public services in regions with a higher local government governance capacity, lower levels of fiscal decentralization, and a higher pollutant emission intensity. A moderate level of environmental decentralization helps to better promote the supply efficiency of environmental public services through environmental regulation. When the level of environmental decentralization lies between 0.362 and 1.353, environmental regulation effectively improves the supply efficiency of environmental public services. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Traditional studies of urban spatial expansion typically focus on a single vertical or horizontal dimension and rarely consider the two together. Using 58 cities in China as examples, this paper first identifies the urban growth pattern (UGP) of newly built‐up land patches in each city from 1995 to 2015 horizontally. It then compares and analyses the distribution patterns of three‐dimensional buildings in different UGP patches vertically. There were two important findings: (a) Building patterns in the outlying patches were characterized by low density, high floor numbers, and smooth changes. The infilling patches represented compact development and had the lowest average building height. Edge patches had the highest average number of floors, the most dramatic floor variability, and the lowest utilization rate of three‐dimensional space. (b) In western cities, building distribution characteristics in outlying patches were similar and formed clusters. The distribution characteristics of buildings in the Beijing‐Tianjin‐Hebei urban agglomeration edge patches, as well as those in the northeast urban agglomeration infilling patches, were similar, forming clusters of different types. The results of this paper will contribute to an understanding of both sprawl and the compact development of Chinese cities and will provide international comparative examples. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The slow growth of the permanently settled migrants in host cities poses new challenges for the sustainability of China's future urbanization. Given the growing importance of homeownership, this paper clarifies migrants' settlement intentions into three mutually exclusive patterns, including de facto permanent settlement intention through homeownership, long‐term temporary settlement intention and short‐term temporary settlement intention. Based on matched micro‐ and macro‐level data, this paper examines the influence of city economic development and housing prices on these three patterns. The results suggest that economic development exhibits an attractive effect on migrants' settlement intentions for both earning money and for making a life while housing price weakens rural migrants' de facto permanent settlement intention. We also highlight the effect of the Housing Provident Fund (HPF), the most important housing financial policy in China, on settlement intention, and the results suggest that the HPF serves as an option to help migrants achieve permanent settlement through housing availability. The findings can explain the mixed results of previous research and provide policy references for sustainable urbanization in China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the past decades, the automotive sector in China has been characterized by the obligation of foreign manufacturers to enter joint ventures, transfer technologies, and localize production. Still, the Chinese automotive industry has remained dependent on foreign brands, capital, and technology. The advent of markets and supply chains for electric vehicles, however, changes the framework conditions for established foreign automotive firms in terms of competitive landscape and access to core technology components. This is mainly the result of political initiatives: Established automotive manufacturers are exposed to direct and indirect restrictions that influence their production of electric vehicles, their choice of suppliers, and their potential market shares in the future. This paper outlines multilevel bargaining processes of Chinese and foreign actors as they aim to maximize value capture in a fundamentally transitioning automotive sector. In contrast to the lead firm‐centric focus of recent global production networks (GPN)‐discussions, this paper argues that the determinants of how production networks evolve is first and foremost a question of the institutional environment. Focusing on power balances between state and firm actors in multilevel bargaining processes offers a way of explaining GPN‐evolution in institutional contexts in which power concentrates in executive bodies and decision‐making processes are often informal. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Coal resources have always been an important driving force for macroeconomic growth and GDP growth in resource‐rich regions. However, this growth has also caused inequality of household income in developing regions. Using survey data on rural household livelihoods in Shenmu county, Shaanxi Province, in northwestern China, this paper analyzes the relationship between coal exploitation and income inequality. Four multivariate econometric analyses are developed. We find evidence for the resource curse theory of natural resource exploitation leading to inequality: the Gini coefficient for household revenue is discovered to be markedly related with the location of and participation in coal exploitation. Nevertheless, this correlation is not linear. Rather, household income inequality primitively rises with environmental and resource subsidies. We analyze the impacts of household income inequality and contrast the characteristics of household livelihood and location characteristics in the coal exploitation site of northern Shenmu with those in the whole survey site. Our statistical analysis shows that out‐migration, the level of total household income, and convenience of household transportation are the important elements devoting to household income in northern Shenmu, the coal resources endowment region. However, the environmental damage and pollution caused by coal exploitation has substantial negative impacts upon household income, especially for households not participating in coal activities. Overall, we found that coal exploitation did not develop local industries. Adversely, the ecological environment problem and the high subsidy for coal mining caused by the exploitation of coal resources have aggravated the inequality of household income in the sample areas. Additionally, the development of coal resources attracted youth labor from agriculture to the coal industry, which exacerbated the lack of labor force and weakened village agricultural productivity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is mounting theoretical and empirical research that explains the reasons for the rapid expansion of China's export trade, but they mostly ignore the effects of cultural differences. To fill this gap, this paper provides an empirical investigation of how cultural diversity affects the sustainable development of trade, which is defined as the goal of maintaining certain volume of trade and making trade growth sustainable. The findings are as follows. (1) Cultural diversity can significantly promote the sustainable development of trade. (2) Entrepreneurship is the possible channel wherein cultural diversity affects the sustainable development of trade, including innovation entrepreneurship and business entrepreneurship. (3) Further studies demonstrate that economic openness has a significant moderating effect on the relationship between cultural diversity and the sustainable development of trade. That is, the higher the level of openness of a city, the stronger the promotion of cultural diversity to the sustainable development of trade. This study not only deepens understanding on the relationship between culture and trade but also provides important policy implications for many countries that have high migration rates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The relationship between labor migration and the medical benefits of migrant children (MC) has long been a focus of empirical research. Based on the dynamic monitoring data of the migrant population in Hubei Province by the National Health and Family Planning Commission of China in 2014 and the characteristic data of prefecture‐level cities, this paper studies the impact of labor migration on the medical benefits of MC. The major findings of this paper are that in China, due to the huge spatial differences in medical services, the migration of labor to urban areas with better public services helps to improve the medical benefits of women during pregnancy and lying‐in period, and at the same time significantly enhances the medical benefits of the MC. In contrast, due to the relative lag of the reform in social security system such as household registration and medical care, in the long run, labor migration is not conducive to the improvement of the medical benefits of MC. Based on the above findings, this paper suggests that in the short‐term, more public resources should be allocated to the urban medical supply, especially at the primary level, and in the long‐term, the adjustment of public policies should be aimed at eliminating urban‐rural differences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Eco‐efficiency is an important indicator which serves as a helpful instrument for the studies of sustainable development. This paper estimated the eco‐efficiency of 26 cities in China's Yangtze River Delta urban agglomerations. Based on different matrixes, Moran's I was applied to analyze the spatial correlation. The spatial Durbin model was applied to analyze the direct and indirect effect of influencing factors. Some conclusions were drawn. (a) The average eco‐efficiency showed an increasing trend. The regional difference of eco‐efficiency decreased and then increased. Shanghai's eco‐efficiency had been the highest. (b) The eco‐efficiency showed positive spatial autocorrelation and it also exhibited significant characteristic of local spatial autocorrelation. (c) Economic development, fixed assets investment, and technological level of one city had a significant positive impact on the eco‐efficiency of the city itself. Industrial structure, fiscal decentralization, and foreign direct investment of a city had a significant negative impact on the eco‐efficiency of the city itself. Changes in the economic development and technological levels in a city had positive impacts on the eco‐efficiency of its neighboring cities. Foreign direct investment had a negative spatial spillover effect. (d) This paper suggested that it is necessary to pay attention to the interaction of influencing factors among cities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Agricultural e‐commerce clusters are new phenomena that have emerged in rural China. In examining the case of Shuyang County in Jiangsu Province, this paper puts forward an integrated model revealing the formation mechanism of agricultural e‐commerce clusters. The paper shows that the formation of agricultural e‐commerce clusters involves four processes of technology introduction, technology diffusion, quality crisis, and industrial agglomeration based on elements such as industry bases, e‐commerce platforms, network facilities, logistics services, entrepreneurial talent, local government, and market demand. Rural social networks and imitation behaviors promote technology diffusion by reducing the cost of technology introduction, and industrial agglomeration is found in the economies showing a deepening of labor divisions and geographic agglomeration. Throughout the formation process, a quality crisis may occur due to a race to the bottom and the opportunistic behaviors of local farmers. This work suggests that regional e‐commerce development is a systematic project. Governments of developing countries should not only realize the positive impacts of e‐commerce for the development of the agricultural industry but also recognize the premise and logic of how e‐commerce can play a prominent role. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Through panel data for every province in China from 2006 to 2016, this paper studies the impact of the efficiency of science and technological services and the level of economic development on environmental governance, with the efficiency of science and technological services as the threshold variables. The results of the research indicate that the efficiency of science and technological services in China's provinces is low, while the regional gap is expanding. When the efficiency of science and technological services is the threshold variable, single threshold results are significant. When the efficiency of science and technological services is the threshold variable and when the efficiency of science and technological services is lower than the threshold value, there is a significant impact on environmental governance. If the efficiency of science and technological services crosses the threshold value, the impact of science and technological service efficiency on environmental governance becomes insignificant. For the level of economic development, it is a core explanatory variable and has a significant impact on environmental governance only when the efficiency of science and technological services is below the threshold value. According to the empirical results, this paper proposes corresponding countermeasures and suggestions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Malthusian population theory states that, when population growth exceeds the growth of the means of production, socioeconomic development will be hindered. This paper analyzes this issue from the perspective of uncoordinated urbanization. We used the data available for 262 cities at the prefecture level and above in China, for the years 2000, 2005, 2010, and 2015. We empirically investigated the relationship between uncoordinated urbanization and urban economic growth. We also examined how this relationship is affected by natural resource constraints. The research results show that there are temporal and spatial differences in the distribution of uncoordinated urbanization in China. From a temporal perspective, from 2000 to 2015, 45.61% of China's 262 cities show under‐urbanization, while 36.45% of cities show over‐urbanization. However, the number of cities with over‐urbanization is growing. From a spatial perspective, the number of cities in the northeastern region with over‐urbanization is declining. Conversely, the number of cities with over‐urbanization in Beijing in the central and southeastern coastal areas is increasing. Empirical research shows that uncoordinated urbanization and urban economic growth have an inverted U‐shaped relationship. Abundant natural resources can make the inverted U‐shaped curve of uncoordinated urbanization and economic growth flatter. The "resource curse" seems to occur only under high levels of uncoordinated urbanization (over‐urbanization). For some cities where there is under‐urbanization, abundant natural resources are conducive to urban economic growth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on 2012–2017 panel data of 282 China's cities, this paper uses the entropy method to calculate an urban resilience index, uses spatial cold–hot spots model to explore spatial characteristics of urban resilience, uses revised the gravity model to construct urban resilience spatial network characteristics, and uses the social network analysis method to analyze spatial network characteristics of urban resilience. The results show that: (1) Urban resilience of China's cities has been gradually improved, and there is a geographical aggregation effect, with significant changes in hot spots and insignificant changes in cold spots. (2) Urban resilience has obvious spatial correlation and linkage effects and strong temporal fluctuation. The cities with higher degree centrality and closeness centrality are consistent in spatial distribution, mostly located in Bohai Rim, Pan‐Yangtze River Delta, Pearl River Delta and some central regions. The centrality obviously shows non‐equilibrium in spatial distribution. The cities with high centrality are mostly provincial capitals. (3) The "club effect" has not yet been reflected in the urban resilience spatial network, and the advantages of different regions are obviously different. Therefore, it is necessary to face up to the spatial difference of urban development and enhance the diversity and pertinence of urban resilience construction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the changing spatial distribution of electronic information manufacturing (EIM) industry in China by focusing on the location choice of new firms. A three‐pronged "global‐regional‐local" nexus framework was proposed to identify the factors that influence firm location choice. Tobit regression analysis was performed to evaluate the impacts of these factors. The study reveals the spatial concentration of the EIM industry and a trend of westward diffusion. The regression analyses stratified by time period and by region demonstrate spatial and temporal variabilities in the influence of many factors, especially the regional advantage factors (e.g., labor cost, localization economies, and urbanization economies). Meanwhile, some factors, such as foreign direct investment, the presence of state‐owned enterprises, and local government policies, show stable effects over time and across regions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Studying the spatial pattern and determinants of migrant workers' income is vital for grasping their mobility tendencies to better administer to this urban floating population and propel urbanization. Using 2017 data from the China Migrants Dynamic Survey, this paper adopts trend surface, standard deviation ellipse, and spatial correlation methods to describe the spatial pattern of migrant workers' income in China. It then employs econometric models to examine the spatial effects and determinants of migrant workers' income. The spatial pattern demonstrates an obvious cluster phenomenon for the migrant workers' income in prefectural cities. Based on this social context, our empirical results further show that migrant workers' income has a spatial dependence effect. Migrant workers' income is positively affected by the migrant workers' individual characteristics (demographics, outflow characteristics, social integration) and negatively affected by the external factors (public social services, economic development environment) of the cities into which they flow. There is salient spatial variation in the determinants of migrant workers' income in prefectural cities, which are divided into multifactorial influence zones, work experience and house price influence zones, and education and family influence zones by cluster analysis, and into eastern and midwestern influence zones according to China's three economic areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China's aging population is experiencing an urban–rural inversion phenomenon in that the rural population is aging faster. This is normal worldwide as studies have found that urban–rural differences in population aging have universal and phase characteristics. However, China's population aging presents a "polarization trend," that is, the aging speed of areas with a deep aging degree is faster. In this paper, we try to test whether China's current urban–rural difference in population aging is rational if considered with China's current economic and social development. We adopted the four‐quadrant map analysis method and compare China with major developed and developing countries with key indicators. Data were mainly collected from databases by country, including the Statistical Yearbook, World Bank Database, and United Nations Database. Results show that urban–rural differences in China's aging population are significantly ahead of economic development and urbanization; this imbalance can explain the greater urban–rural disparity and the "polarization trend" in China's population. Results indicate that population aging's urban–rural differences are not necessarily exhibiting universal and phased characteristics in China. What's worse, the imbalanced population aging situation will make the rural poverty and the inter‐generational conflict more prominently. Public policies are necessary to deal with the current imbalance situation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The pollution abatement effect of environmental regulation changes periodically in terms of local economic agglomeration levels, because of agglomeration externalities could influence firms' regulatory response by changing the compliance cost. Based on a panel dataset of 30 provinces in China from 1999 to 2017, this paper engages in threshold model and mediation analysis to examine the thresholds of economic agglomeration for environmental regulation to take effect and the influencing paths of environmental regulation at different agglomeration levels. The economic agglomeration degree is measured by the economic density of the built‐up area. The threshold test recognizes two thresholds of economic density, which are 0.3 CNY billion/km2 and 1.7 CNY/km2. Only when economic density exceeds the thresholds, can environmental regulation significantly reduce industrial emission intensity and emission density, respectively. At the first threshold, environmental regulation takes effect mainly through improving local industrial structure; at the second threshold, environmental regulation takes effect mainly through downsizing the scale of polluting industries. The policy enlightenment provided by this article is to formulate differentiated environmental governance strategies according to local conditions and the characteristics of the development stage of each region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]