The impact of economic policy on industrial specialization and regional concentration of China’s high-tech industries

This paper uses a dynamic panel approach to investigate the impact of economic policy on industrial specialization and regional concentration of China’s high-tech industries for the period 1996–2005. It is found that the degrees of specialization and concentration show increasing trends throughout the sample period, while high-tech industry sector has increasingly concentrated in costal regions. It is also found that the implementation of high-technology-oriented export policy and subsidy for science and high-technology activities encourage specialization and concentration, whereas local governments’ protection for local high-tech enterprises results in convergence in regional industrial structure and obstructs regional concentration of high-tech industries. The estimation result is robust not only to the use of various estimation techniques, but also to the control for other factors proposed by theories such as transport costs and knowledge resources. Our findings support the idea that economic policies might play an important role in determining the geographic distribution of high-tech industries in China.     

The Development of Housing Policy in the English Regions: Trends and Prospects

This paper explores the emergence of housing strategies at the regional level in England in the context of wider ambiguities over establishing this new tier of governance. The paper notes the growing differentiation in local housing markets across the country and examines the implications for national policy formation and the development of new regional structures and responsibilities. These trends are interpreted by reference to different models of governance and the 'rescaling' of government functions and responsibilities in housing. The implications of these processes for housing strategy formation at the regional level are then assessed. The development of regional housing strategies is then considered against three key challenges: the growth of 'network' forms of governance, the applicability of the regional level as a tier for strategy formulation and development, and the different policy responses in other sectors towards housing market change at the sub-national level. The paper concludes by briefly considering likely future developments in regional governance. In conclusion it suggests that the aim of achieving greater integration between housing, planning and economic development strategies may be threatened by underlying processes of uneven economic growth and social polarisation.     

Chinese innovation-driving factors: regional structure,innovation effect,and economic development—empirical research based on panel data

The implementation of innovation-driven strategy is of great significance. Analysis of the driving factors of innovation performance from quantitative and systematic perspectives is needed for policy making. By drawing upon the LMDI model, this study identifies the driving factors and their corresponding contributions in the innovation performance of 30 Chinese provincial-level regions during the period 2000–2012. The innovation performance is decomposed into the regional economic structure effect, R&D intensity effect, innovation efficiency effect, and economic development effect according to the driving mechanism. The results indicate that the third effect in this list, innovation efficiency, contributes the most to innovation performance at 54.28%, followed by the regional R&D intensity at 27.49%, and China’s economic development at 19.92%. The effect of the regional economic structure is negative, at ?1.69%. This study further analyzes four major economic areas of China and identifies the channels through which each area conducts their innovation activities. The empirical findings provide information for policy measures to implement innovation-driven strategies.     

Trends Affecting Victoria's Regional Centres

The paper examines how structural economic change and recent population trends are affecting Victoria's provincial centres. It also reviews regional policy changes occurring overseas and in Australia and concludes that the days of big spending regional programs are over and are being replaced by State and Commonwealth Government policies that foster local initiatives.     

SPATIAL RESPONSES TO FORDIST AND POST-FORDIST ACCUMULATION AND REGULATION

ABSTRACT This paper deals with the political geography of regional economic development under Fordism and its transition to post-Fordism. It summarises international, national and regional trends in Fordist accumulation and regulation. Second, it indicates haw Fordism dissolves and is replaced by a so tar insufficiently perceived and defined "post-Fordism." A general sketch of the political and economic geography for this, perhaps, new stage in capitalist development is put forward. Third, the authors discuss which elements in different institutional and neo-Marxian theories of the state are the most helpful to understand the role of the state under Fordism and the transition to post-Fordism.     

中国区域经济发展不平衡问题研究综述

本文通过对我国区域经济发展的历史、不平衡现状的概述,指出经济发展不平衡已经成为目前我国区域经济发展过程的突出问题,并对国内外目前的研究成果进行综述及评析,最后判断了该课题研究的必要性及发展趋势。     

21世纪初期我国城市化发展态势与对策的探讨

在计划经济体制向市场经济体制转型过程中,城市化发展进程中出现了一些新问题、新矛盾。本文分析了经济转轨时期我国城市化的发展变化规律,对未来市场经济体制条件下城市化的发展态势和区域经济社会发展趋势进行了预测。提出了调控和保障城市化和城市发展的政策构想和具体措施建议,为政府宏观调控城市化和城市发展提供政策参考,为制定国民经济和社会发展第十个“五年计划”和2015年规划、建设事业“十五规划”等重大决策提供咨询。     

Rural Transformation and Planning Tactics in the 13~(th) Five-Year Plan Period

Rural development has long been the focus of China's central and local governments. Since the late 2000 s, rural areas have presented new transformation features and development trends. To stimulate rural transformation and development in the 13 th Five-Year Plan period, this paper reviews major ideas on rural development in related disciplines. This study also summarizes main rural transformation features, including the aging population, hollow villages, changes in the allocation of land resource, semi-urbanization, and regional differences in rural development. Finally, it also provides suggestions for planning tactics in the 13 th Five-Year Plan period, such as making differentiated rural development strategies, exploring new methods to stimulate rural stock land planning and use, and enforcing relevant policy and management reforms.     

“十四五”时期发展新趋势与国土空间规划应对

"十四五"时期,我国将进入经济转型和制度革新的新时代。国土空间规划作为国家的重要政策调控工具,将有力地支撑国家的转型发展。本文认为,新时期社会经济发展的趋势有经济发展进入新常态、城镇化发展进入新阶段和生态文明建设进入新时代。在此背景下,高质量发展成为各项工作的出发点,国土空间规划应在优化配置供给侧要素、服务新旧动能转换和实现全要素管理自然资源等三个方面落实高质量发展的目标。新时期国土空间规划关注的重点应包括城乡空间发展、城市品质提升和生态文明建设等。     

An evaluation of energy growth and use trends as a potential upper limit in metropolitan development

The case of energy use and distribution as forecast from a composite of authoritative United States sources is used as the basis for a prediction of regional energy concentration. These regional energy concentration trends are related to a complex pattern of natural growth, national policy, public taste and economic interplay. Present trends in prime mover development have tended to reduce the emphasis on efficiency relative to economic forces with the result that the potential exists for development of energy-release concentrations in amounts which may be contrary to the pollution management policies thought desirable. Although incremental costs of environmental control appear reasonable, the related increases in energy release projected on the same geometric basis as power demands appears to need closer examination.Examinations of total energy release suggest direct relationship in weather modification of metropolitan areas such that mean temperatures are increasing, cloudiness is increased and total precipitation markedly increased. Thermal energy releases appear as a stabilizing element in decreasing the ventilation of pollutants from large cities. Forecasts of total energy release in metropolitan areas as large as the Boston-Washington megalopolis and greater Los Angeles indicate heat fluxes of 30 to 40% of the incident solar energy by the year 2000 A.D. Such releases have been forecast to cause temperature increases of the order to 6°C which in turn can be expected to affect stream temperatures and the power demands for air-conditioning.The situation suggests a close examination of the trends in the mix of fossil and nuclear facilities, the general use of energy in metropolitan areas and related practices in prime mover design and development. The relationship of power economics, building codes and public taste appears so intricately related as to indicate serious difficulty in the development of a national and international policy.Tentative solutions appear to include emphasis on metropolitan deconcentration, increased prime mover and ultimate user efficiency, re-examination of the incentives for more research in building technology and supporting equipment and ultimately, the potential for national and international cooperation in the long range accomodation of increased energy consumption by wide scale resort to redistribution of energy release points as a basis for metropolitan resettlement.     

COMPETITION AND COOPERATION IN ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT: EXAMINING THE PERCEPTIONS OF PRACTITIONERS IN ONTARIO,CANADA

This article reports on a study that explored economic development practitioners’ perceptions of competition and cooperation in economic development. The study was conducted against the backdrop of (1) an increasing advocacy by scholars and policymakers for cooperative policy practices in economic development instead of competition and (2) the restrictive institutional environment within which practitioners operate in Ontario. The analysis in the paper is based on in‐depth interviews with eighteen economic development directors from a wide range of communities in the province of Ontario, Canada. Findings indicate that practitioners had a strong positive view of regional approaches in the present global economy. These findings contrast sharply with prior studies suggesting that practitioners are unwilling to cooperate in regional economic development. The study offers several possible reasons for a change in thinking. Practitioners also supported restricting financial incentives to businesses in Ontario, arguing that restrictions provide a more even environment for economic development activities in the province. Interestingly, practitioners’ support appears to contradict doubts about the global competitiveness of Ontario communities in such a restrictive environment. In light of practitioners’ positive cooperative attitudes, study findings suggest areas for policy interventions to enhance practical cooperative policy making.     

Multi-level governance of regional economic development in Norway and Sweden: too much or too little top-down control?

Regional level has been identified as the key institutional level for economic development policies. However, in Norway and Sweden regional economic development as a policy field is to a limited extent placed under the control of directly elected regional parliaments, whereas the most important instruments for stimulating regional economic development and innovation are controlled by national government and regional state offices. In this article we discuss the theoretical and normative arguments for centralizing or decentralizing instruments for enhancing regional economic development and the implications of the fact that strong instruments for enhancing regional economic development are controlled by national government in these countries.     

城乡融合对小城镇区域专业化分工的影响——以浙江省为例

小城镇作为城乡交互的重要节点,在我国区域经济社会发展中一直具有非常特殊的地位和作用。"十四五"期间,城乡融合发展的体制机制建设将大力促进城乡要素的自由流动与重组配置,小城镇也将面临能否由"区域分异"走向"区域分工"的战略抉择。以浙江省为例,在剖析当前省域小城镇社会空间极化、职能类型分化特征的基础上,分析城乡融合发展战略对浙江省小城镇区域专业化分工所产生的影响,并从不同区域、不同类型视角提出针对性的战略指引与政策供给,为"十四五"时期浙江省小城镇的特色协同发展提供路径思考,同时也为全国其他省份提供参考和借鉴。     

地方高校社会服务职能的现状与发展

广东是中国经济发展的前沿区域,地方高校在服务当地经济建设中具有鲜明的地域特色。针对广东地方高校发展的规律、人才培养的落脚点、科研创新应用的侧重点和人文精神传承的核心点等方面进行了深入剖析,探索未来地方高校如何加强与社会的联系,积极主动寻求与社会各界有效合作的新途径,并为省外地方高校社会服务功能的发展提供新思路。     

Evolutionary economics and regional policy

Our principal objective is to formulate some possible links between evolutionary economics and regional policy, a topic that has not (yet) been covered by the literature. To begin with, we outline what we take to be the essential arguments and components of evolutionary economics. More in particular, we focus attention on the economic foundation of technology policy from an evolutionary perspective, and how this deviates from the so-called `equilibrium' rationale. Then, we examine in what way evolutionary insights may be helpful for regional policy matters. Our emphasis is to investigate the degrees of freedom policy makers may have to determine the future development of regions. This is done by distinguishing between two ideal-types of regional development based on evolutionary principles.  When evolutionary mechanisms like `chance' and `increasing returns' are involved in the spatial formation of new economic activities, there are several, quite contradictory, options for policy makers. On the one hand, the importance of `chance events' implies that multiple potential outcomes of location are quite thinkable. This is a principal problem for regional policy because new development paths can not be planned or even foreseen. On the other hand, policy makers may have a considerable role to play. Since space exercises only a minor influence on the location of new economic activities, there is room for policy makers to act and to build-up a favourable local environment. In this respect, `urbanisation economies' may offer advantages of flexibility secured by a diversity of activities that may prevent a process of `negative lock-in'.  When evolutionary mechanisms like `selection' and `path dependency' largely determine the geography of innovation, the options for policy makers to change fundamentally the course of regional development are expected to be rather limited. Regional policy is likely to fail when local strategies deviate considerably from the local context. In such circumstances, policy makers have to account for the fact that adaptation to change is largely constrained by the boundaries of the spatial system laid down in the past. However, this also implies that the potential impact of regional policy may be quite large when the policy objectives are strongly embedded in the surrounding environment. Received: September 1998/Accepted: January 2000     

A framework for exploratory space-time analysis of economic data

The development of exploratory spatial data analysis methods is an active research domain in the field of geographic information science (GIS). At the same time, the coupled space-time attributes of economic phenomena are difficult to be represented and examined. Both GIS and economic geography are faced with the challenges of dealing with the temporal dynamics of geographic processes and spatial dynamics of economic development across scales and dimensions. This paper thus suggests a novel way to generalize the characteristics and the structure of space-time data sets, using regional economic data as the example. Accordingly, a reasonable number of general questions (data analysis tasks) can be abstracted. Then, tools (methods) may be suggested on that basis. The cross-fertilization between exploratory spatial data analysis (ESDA) and spatial economics is also identified and illustrated by the capabilities of these components, which have uncovered some interesting patterns and trends in the spatial income data of China and the United States. Through exploratory analysis of economic data, the detection of rich details of underlying geographical and temporal processes would be the first step toward such cross-fertilization. In addition, this exploratory analytical framework can be applied to other data sets that are also measured for areal units at multiple points in time.     

Measuring self-sustainability of economic development at the county level

Factors that affect self-sustainability of regional economic development are defined and analyzed in this paper. Extensive empirical testing shows that at the county level, the size of the regional economy and agglomeration effects are less important than its regional multiplier and its export base. Because the classic export-base model fails specification tests when estimated at the county level, a modified export-base model accounting for spatial effects is developed and analyzed. To validate the proposed spatial export-base model, a practical procedure for estimating parameters of the model is also developed and utilized in an empirical study. The paper concludes with a brief review of the applicability of the modified export-base model to the analysis of the self-sustainability of regional economies, its limitations, and its policy implications. In particular, it is suggested that regional economic development policies should focus on promoting patterns of self-reinforcing regional growth rather than on maintaining unsustainable economic initiatives. It is also demonstrated that the size of a county's economy is not directly related to its self-sustainability and growth rates. Received: May 2000/Accepted: March 2002 Many thanks to Roger Stough and Alena Smirnova for their helpful comments. The research was supported in part by Grant CO-12884F from the Appalachian Regional Commission. An earlier version of the paper was presented at the 39th Annual Meeting of the Southern Regional Science Association in Miami Beach, FL, April 13–15, 2000.     

Comparing China's city transportation and economic networks

The urban system has been a prevailing research issue in the fields of urban geography and regional economics. Not only do the relationships between cities in the city system exist in the form of rankings, but also in a more general network form. Previous work has examined the spatial structure of the urban system in terms of its separate industrial networks, such as in transportation and economic activity, but little has been done to compare different networks. To rectify this situation, this study analyzes and reveals the spatial structural features of China's urban system by comparing its transportation and economic urban networks, thus providing new avenues for research on China's city network. The results indicate that these two networks relate with each other by sharing structural equivalence with a basic diamond structure and a layered intercity structure decreasing outwards from the national centers. A decoupling effect also exists between them as the transportation network contributes to a balanced regional development, while the economic network promotes agglomeration economies. The law of economic development and the government both play important roles in the articulation between these two networks, and the gap between them can be shortened by related policy reforms and the improvement of the transportation network.     

REGIONAL ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT AND CHILD CARE: TOWARD SOCIAL RIGHTS

ABSTRACT: Economic arguments are now at the center of child care policy discussions in the United States and Canada. We review the main economic logics applied to child care, namely long‐term studies of child development on school readiness and future workforce, and short‐term analyses of impacts on the regional economy. We analyze a sample of economic development–focused child care studies to demonstrate how they draw on a new discursive frame, authorize new coalitions of actors and champions, and introduce new policy tools at the state/provincial and local levels. Such economic logic makes the regional level a new priority for child care development, marking a shift in scale. We find the economic development approach is reshaping discourse and is leading to changes in public policy at both the state and local levels. The new paradigm of promoting child care as economic development has potential to strengthen child care as a social right and to enhance gender justice.     

Growth effects of regional policy in Germany: results from a spatially augmented multiplicative interaction model

Private investment subsidies are a key instrument for regional policy making to foster the economic development in lagging regions. In this paper, we analyze their effect on labor productivity growth for German labor market regions for the period from 1994 to 2006. A spatially augmented multiplicative interaction model based on neoclassical growth theory is used, which allows us to assess the marginal effect of regional policy proxied by overall payments of the main German regional development program on the region’s convergence speed conditional on its initial income position as well as policy-related spillovers from its spatial neighborhood. Our results show a statistically significant positive effect of regional policy on labor productivity growth, which increases, the further away the supported region is from its steady-state income level, and the more grants are provided to its geographical neighborhood. The latter effect highlights the existence of positive spatial spillover effects from regional policy in Germany, which enhance the attractiveness of the whole macro region for private sector investments. The additional growth stimulus provided by a 1 % increase in the region’s funding volume is thereby related to an up to 0.3 % gain in terms of labor productivity growth. For regions with the highest initial gaps to steady-state income in the sample distribution, the regional policy stimulus accounts for almost 8 % of the regions’ productivity growth performance.