Study On Regional Economic Resilience In Northeast China

The concept of regional economic resilience is put forward due to the adjustment needed in the model of economic operation incurred by the external influences such as financial crisis and industrial revolution.Nowadays,disruptions,faced by regional economic development and caused by natural disasters,depletion of resources and energy,periodic economic recessions,financial crisis and other factors may bring difficulties to regional economy.When encountering external shocks,some areas can successfully recover and rebound with steady growth while some areas can be trapped in the downward spiral.A region of strong economic resilience can withstand the external shocks and adaptive to develop its economic development model in the new circumstances which enables itself to realize virtuous growth.Therefore,considering increasing uncertainty,it is of great theoretical and practical significance to build the resilience of a regional economy.According to the existing studies,the research on regional economic resilience starts relatively late.Apart from some progress in the definition,although no definite conclusion has been reached with some researches focusing on the stability of economic growth and others emphasizing on transformation of growth model.The exchanges among economists on the regional economic resilience are not based on the same concept and standard,leading to the confusion.Studies on the main form and formation mechanism also require further discussion.In recent years,due to the external impact brought by the global financial crisis in 2008 and the fourth industrial revolution,the economy of Northeastern China has long been on a downward trend.The structural and systematic contradictions accumulated under the planned economy system have become increasingly evident,and the economy has fallen into an unprecedented predicament,which has aroused public concern.The thesis chooses three representative old industrial bases--Liaoning,Jilin and Heilongjiang--as examples to explore the pattern of regional economic resilience and its formation mechanism in a bid to make some contribution to industrial transformation and upgrading in Northeastern China.The main contents and conclusions of the study are as follows:Firstly,after reviewing the existing literature,the thesis defines the concept of regional economic resilience as the ability of a regional economic system to deal with external shocks to maintain or improve the original model of economic operation,and the regional economic resilience is divided into two forms of resistance and reconstruction power.the economy of the Northeastern China at this stage is short of resilience due to the lack of reconstruction power.In light of this and based on theoretic premises of imperfect market,the regional heterogeneity,open economy,the new industrial revolution and sustainable development,the thesis sees regional economic resilience as the inherent attributes of regional economic system,considers the regional economic system as the material carrier of regional economic resilience.The framework of analysis is established with components of regional economic resilience from the perspective of regional supply system and social system and the mechanism of response to external shocks.Secondly,based on the above-mentioned theoretical analysis and in combination with the background of external shocks experienced by the northeast China,this thesis explains the evolution process of economic resilience in northeast China,and analyzes the current development status and major problems from four aspects of industrial system,spatial structure,technological capacity and trade system.At the same time,the comprehensive metrics system of economic resilience is constructed,and the measurement results are summarized and analyzed.The result shows,from 2009 to 2012,no big difference took place in the proportion of cities at different levels of resilience.Since 2013,the proportion of cities with low and medium economic resilience has increased rapidly,while that of cities with strong resilience has been on a sharp decline.From the perspective of spatial evolution,cities with low resilience and slow economy form clusters.The economic resilience of coastal cities is higher than that of inland regions,cities in the south are more resilient than those in the north,and cities in the east and central are more resilient than those in the west.In terms of inter-provincial economic resilience,Jilin has the strongest resilience,followed by Liaoning and Heilongjiang province,respectively.From the perspective of city types,the economic resilience of resource-based cities is relatively low,while that of non-resource-based cities is higher.as shown in the sequence where resilience is gradually decreased: comprehensive city,forest and industry-focused city,oil-reliant city,coal-reliant cities and metallurgical city;From the perspective of the scale,the larger the scale is,the higher the economic resilience is.Among them,the economic resilience of megacities is far ahead of that of other cities.And small and medium-sized cities are relatively remote from advanced economic centers and thus less resilient.From the perspective of growth rate,the speed of urban economic growth basically reflects the level of urban economic resilience,and the economic resilience of regional central cities is far higher than that of other cities.Thirdly,based on the panel regression method,through the empirical analysis of the influence factors of regional economic resilience,the overall sample regression analysis results show that the improvement of industrial agglomeration degree,regional innovation capacity and spatial quality is conducive to the increase of regional economic resilience,while higher level of openness will reduce regional economic resilience.The results of sub-regional regression study show that the innovation has the strongest effect on the economic resilience of Liaoning province,followed by Jilin province and Heilongjiang province.The regression results of cities of different sizes show that the influence of industrial agglomeration and regional innovation level on the economic resilience of large cities is much higher than that of small and medium-sized cities.The spatial quality of big cities has positive impact on resilience while its influence on small and medium-sized cities are insignificant.The regression results of different types of cities show that industrial agglomeration and regional innovation level are beneficial to the economic resilience,while space quality and openness have no significant impact on resource-based cities.Fourthly,using spatial econometric model,from the angle of the influence exerted by industry diversification and specialization of industry,analysis is made on the industrial upgrade and the spillover effect of regional economic resilience.The regression results show that the diversity of industries is helpful but has no significant impact on the surrounding area.Industrial specialization is conducive to elevate the economic resilience of both local and surrounding regions,enabling them to give full play to their own competitive advantages,optimize the allocation of resources,and form a scale effect.It is further proved that northeast China should measure local conditions when it comes to industrial selection,pursue industrial layout that is small in quantity but better in quality,concentrate on the development of leading industries,and promote the development of neighboring cities through the construction of relevant supporting industries.Cities should neither ignore the changing needs of the current stage,the new industrial revolution,the industrial policies and other common influential factors and nor ignore the current industry system,the resources,the enterprise structure in northeast China and other special factors.Efforts should be made to build innovative and high value-added industries that are strong in the links of technology and industries to realize industrial upgrade and resilient regional economic system.Fifthly,considering the economic characteristics,problems and their causes,the thesis puts forward the path and strategy to build economic resilience in northeast China.in terms of industrial technology,innovation ability should be enhanced so as to promote industrial transformation and upgrading;in terms of industrial space,the administrative boundary should be broken down to improve the coordination level of urban city agglomeration;in terms of social system,the role of talents should be emphasized to improve technological innovation.The government and the market should perform their respective roles and give full play to the decisive role of the market in resource allocation.The government should be committed to creating an innovative environment,protecting private property rights of enterprises and reducing cost of doing businesses.