Manufacturing Agglomeration In China: Analysis And Empirical Work From View Of Heterogeneity Of Firm In Size

It is a new field exploring the agglomeration of manufacturing industries from firm-level that ignored by the great studies on the manufacturing agglomeration in China. Much of this relies on heterogeneous firm. Heterogeneity of firms can't be neglected to investigate agglomeration of Chinese manufacturing industries from firm level because of the flexibility of the heterogeneity of firm in a transitional and industrialization-propelling country. The previous studies only pay attention to the firm heterogeneity in terms of the ownership and productivity instead of in terms of size. Foreign researches indicate that heterogeneity of firm size is a main cause of manufacturing agglomeration. The size distribution of firms varies enormously across the cluster areas in china; this indicates the links between firm size and industrial agglomeration. The dissertation focuses exactly on the relationship between firm size and manufacturing agglomeration from theoretical and empirical study.In theory, the thesis provides mechanisms through which heterogeneity of firm size promote the manufacturing agglomeration based on present literature. The main topics are falled into two groups. One is the effect of heterogeneity of firm size on industrial agglomeration. The other is a positive correlation between the firm size and geographic concentration of industry. Heterogeneity of firm size effects agglomeration economies through labor market pooling, entrepreneurial spillovers, knowledge spillovers, spinoffs, and consumer/supplier linkages. The latter concerns that under the interaction between internal scale economy and transportation cost heterogeneous firms have the different geographic preferences in location, large firms prone to locate in areas that are specialized in a particular sector.This dissertation does the empirical work from three aspects. One aspect captures the stylized facts of the heterogeneity of firm size and agglomeration of Chinese manufacturing industries. The other two aspects are econometrical researches.On the stylized facts, Firstly, the spatial distribution of Chinese manufacturing industries is characterized by using cumulative growth rate of employment of manufacturing industries. Secondly, the links between firm size and agglomeration of Chinese manufacturing industries are explored by means of location quotient and industrial concentration index, we find that degrees of the geographic concentration of manufacturing industries of different provinces and time patterns are different though increase of the shares of manufacturing industries in the eastern China and decrease of the shares of manufacturing industries in other regions. The shares of manufacturing industries in Yangzi river delta and Pearl River delta increase and that of manufacturing industries in north east regions and in municipalities decrease. And the shares of manufacturing industries in middle region and west region decrease one after another. Through the research of the scale of enterprises and agglomeration of Chinese manufacturing industries availing of location quotient and industrial concentration index, this dissertation shows that heterogeneity of firm size has influence on the agglomeration of Chinese manufacturing industries. And the influence varies with different industries and ownership. Influence of firms in number on the geographic concentration of some industries dominates that of firms in scale by terms of Industries. These industries are more inclined to concentration. But the geographic concentration of other industries owe to in large the natural endowment and the firms scale. By terms of ownership the degree of geographic concentration of the foreign enterprises is at the highest level, and next is private enterprises, national owed enterprises.The econometrical tests include two effects. The One examines the effects of the industrial organization charactoristics of heterogeneity of firm size on agglomeration economies using the industrial data of the number and scale of firms. Regression totally shows that specialization economy of industries and competitive effect are the main causes of the agglomeration of manufacturing industries. Regressions of different groups of the firms scale show that there are various external economies in size of the firms. Specialization economy is very significant in the small scale firms, and diversified economy is distinctive in the medium and large-sized firms. Regressions by the factor density show that agglomeration economies of the small-sized enterprises vary in the different factor density industries, but the difference between the large enterprises is not significant. The other tests the interaction between heterogeneous firm and the geographic concentration of manufacturing industries. Results of the overall sample show that there is a positive correlation between the two variables. Results of the different factor endowment show that the correlation between the two variables only is testified partly in the labor-intensive and resource-intensive industries and are testified uniformly and robustly in the capital-intensive and technology-intensive industries. This indicates that the size distribution of the firms in the latters has the inclination of concentration.The implication of above conclusions is that the heterogeneous firms in size affect the industrial agglomeration through the agglomeration economies as well as the size distribution of firms. The former implies agglomeration improves efficiency but the latter indicates that is uncertain. So regional polices should aim at heterogeneity of firm size.