| Regional economic competence refers to an area's capability of attracting resources and competing in the market. Regional competence is also a comprehensive indicator which reflects the political, economic, environmental, scientific and social development in a region. Improving and enhancing regional economic competence is a strategic move for a region to have a quicker, more sustainable and sound development. This is why researches on regional economic competence have been a hot topic recently. Existing researches on regional competence put emphases on current situations and their evolution of a region and try to analyze the regional difference on the bases of geographical location, resource endowment, cultural background, economic system, human resources and its original infrastructure. However, they ignore the role of productivity in leading to regional difference. So, current researches can explain the development results, but cannot guide a region to adapt to the future trends. Given the input, technical efficiency is the ratio of an economic unit's actual output to its production frontier (the maximum output of certain input at a given technology). Technical efficiency can be used to measure the ability of an economic unit to realize maximum output. Moreover, technical efficiency can affect a region's competence by affecting its output. Therefore, it's necessary to study regional economic competence from the point of view of technical efficiency.Currently, researches on regional economic competence and technical efficiency are separated. So far, there is no researchers have carried out a research to combine them together. In each field, there are important findings, but generally, they are qualitative researches, quantitative researches are seldom. If any, their methods are also questionable. It's hard to find researchers to study the regional competence via two different methods and compare their findings. Thus, the dissertation explores the regional differences in economic competences & technical efficiency and their dynamics for cities in Zhejiang province, by adopting combining research methods, such as normative analysis and positive analysis, qualitative analysis and quantitative analysis, static analysis and dynamic analysis. The dissertation mainly discusses the relationship between regional economic competence and technical efficiency and performs positive analysis by usingPrincipal Component Analysis, Stochastic Frontier Analysis (SFA), Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) and Granger analysis.The paper thinks that there are three related questions which have to be solved before discussing the improvement of regional economic competence based on technical efficiency. First, the article has to determine how to evaluate regional economic competence and its determinants. Second, the dissertation has to discuss how to evaluate technical efficiency and its determinants. Third, the paper has to explore what the relationship between regional economic competence and technical efficiency is and the possibility of improving regional economic competence by enhancing technical efficiency.Main contents of the dissertation are as follows.First, the dissertation discusses on regional economical competence and thinks that regional economic competence can be measured by indicators like economic growth rate, GDP per capita, dependence degree on export, financial income, etc. The key is how to quantify the regional economic competence. Theoretically, there is no common conclusion on regional economic competence. So is the positive analysis. There are differences on determinants of regional economic competence. Some try to find the reasons for the differences from the points of capital, technology, knowledge, etc. Others try to do so from the points of institution and innovation. The dissertation, however, tries to find the difference from the point of technical efficiency.Second, the dissertation studies technical efficiency. Given the technology, technical efficiency can be used to measure the ability to get maximum output. Therefore, given the input, and ignoring the technical improvement, an economic unit's output is determined by its technical efficiency. How to evaluate technical efficiency and its determinants are the key in this part. Currently, researchers adopt SFA or DEA to measure technical efficiency, however, both methods have flaws. If they are improperly used, the results can be far away from the reality. Under this condition, the dissertation uses both methods to comprehensively evaluate technical efficiency from points of view of financial development, foreign trade, industrial clustering, urbanization, scientific innovation, etc.Third, the dissertation tries to find the relationship between regional economic competence and technical efficiency. The cost of products in a region can reflect its economic competence. Due to the free capital flow, the prices of materials are nearly thesame. So, the production cost is determined by the productivity, namely, technical efficiency and technical development. The paper assumes that the technical development among regions is indifferent. The difference in productivity lies in the difference in technical efficiency. Theoretically speaking, regional economic competence mainly depends on a region's technical efficiency. Since regional economic competence is a comprehensive indicator of a region's economical strength, internationalization, infrastructure, government management capability, financial environment and innovation. The improvement of regional economic competence is helpful for improving scientific input, industrial clustering and foreign trade, which in turn affect the technical efficiency of a region. Therefore, regional economic competence can affect technical efficiency as well. On the basis of the analysis above, the positive analysis is performed here, too.There are seven chapters in total. Chapter one is the introduction to the thesis, which mainly presents the research objectives, research design, research methods, dissertation's structure and its original ideas.Chapter two reviews the literatures related to regional economic competence and technical efficiency. Studies on regional economic competence are based on researches on national competence, urban competence and enterprise competence. This chapter introduces the main researches in each field. Domestic researches on technical efficiency mainly focus on enterprises and industries. Reviews on these researches guide the paper for the further study. We also introduce methods of technical efficiency evaluation. DEA and SFA are explained in detail and the paper compares them as well.Chapter three establishes a model for regional economic competence and carries out the positive study. The "Turbine Model" of regional economical competence and its evaluation system are put forward in this chapter. Regional economic competence can be regarded as the turbine for regional development. Economic strength, internationalization, infrastructure, financial environment and innovation are drivers for regional development. Only when the drivers above can be integrated into a system, can regional economic competence be effectively improved. There are twenty-six indicators for evaluating regional competence.Chapter four establishes the model for evaluating technical efficiency and performs the corresponding positive analysis by using panel data for Zhejiang province. Discussions on results of technical efficiencies offered by SFA and DEA shows that results offered by SFA can be fairly confirmed by results offered by DEA. But, bycomparison, estimations by SFA are better than those by DEA. Moreover, the paper finds that the degree of economic opening up to the world, financial development, industrial clustering, urbanization processes, and investment in science and technology, etc. has a clear effect on regional technical efficiency.Chapter five discusses the relationship between regional economic competence and technical efficiency. The mechanisms of technical efficiency to regional economical competence and the counteraction effect of regional economic competence to technical efficiency are discussed here. Granger causality analysis to Zhejiang's technical efficiency and regional competence shows that improvement in technical efficiency can enhance regional economic competence which the enhancement of regional competence can improve technical efficiency only with a time lag.Chapter six presents the research conclusions and puts forward sets of suggestions for improving regional economic competence and technical efficiency. Especially, the dissertation discusses how to improve foreign trade, urbanization, industrial clustering, scientific innovation and financial reform, thus, promoting regional technical efficiency and economic competence.How to improve regional economic competence and technical efficiency is a comprehensive and complicated research topic. It's hard to systematically analyze both at the same time. Based on the literature and the positive analysis for Zhejiang province, the dissertation has following contributions.First, the dissertation puts forward the Turbine Model for evaluating regional economic competence and its evaluation system, on the basis of which the positive analysis for Zhejiang province is carried out.Second, the article measures the technical efficiency in Zhejiang province by using SFA and DEA. The results of both methods are consistent, which enhances the conclusions. Moreover, the paper has comprehensively studied the effect of the degree of economic opening up to the world, financial development, industrial clustering, urbanization processes, and investment in science and technology on technical efficiency, which is the first try of the positive analysis in domestic researches on technical efficiency.Third, the dissertation theoretically presents the mechanisms of technical efficiency to regional economical competence and the counteraction effect of regional economic competence to technical efficiency. Granger causality analysis to Zhejiang's technicalefficiency and regional competence shows that improvement in technical efficiency can enhance regional economic competence which the enhancement of regional competence can improve technical efficiency only with a time lag. The positive analysis and its conclusions are quite new in this field.Fourth, the dissertation explores how to improve regional economic competence through the improvement of technical efficiency, which is quite different from previous researches. The previous researches focused on location, capital, labor, technology, knowledge accumulation, institution and innovation.
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