| With the development of the new technological revolution and the changes in the international economic environment,the global industrial system division of labor is being adjusted.In particular,the centralized layout of nearshore and demand-oriented production mode has become an important trend.Nowadays,China not only faces the limitation of comparative advantage in the competition at the commanding heights of the global value chain,but also faces the strategic blockade from developed countries on the mid-to-high-end upgrade of Chinese enterprises.Under this international background,it is necessary to establish effective strategies to jump out of the comparative advantage trap on the basis of the new features of of international industry competition,and to change the situation where key links are controlled by other developed countries.Especially since the COVID-19 epidemic,it's urgent for China to find a way to break through the Global Value Chains based on economic internal circulation.With the continuous expansion of China's urbanization,urban agglomerations and metropolitan areas have gradually become new forms of China's economic spatial pattern.According to the general laws and experience of developed countries,the urban spatial pattern is closely related to the development of a country's industrialization.Spatial agglomeration is an important source of a country's comparative advantage in participating in globalization and international division of labor.The new round of urbanization and the adjustment of economic spatial structure provide new possibilities for China to explore the spatial path of Global Value Chains upgrading.However,most of the existing discussions on the externalities of economic agglomeration are still based on the perspective of single-center spatial agglomeration(single city).On the one hand,with the development of the “new” new economic geography theory,the spatial selection effect of heterogeneous individuals has been proved to be an important mechanism for the sources of productivity in big cities.The traditional Marshall agglomeration externality has been difficult to describe the relationship between microeconomic subjects and economic theories.On the other hand,as the urban spatial morphology of developed countries in the world has shown the characteristics of multi-center agglomeration,and the transformation of China's administrative region economy to urban agglomeration economy,a new round of spatial market integration explores China's economic structural transformation And the spatial path of the Global Value Chains upgrade provides the possibility.In this context,this study explores the possible impact of urban spatial structure on the upgrading of enterprises in the Global Value Chains and its mechanism from the perspective of urban scale expansion and multi-center structure,and discusses the mechanisms of the Global Value Chains upgrade effect of urban spatial structure from the perspective of market integration such as the free mobility of labor and urban infrastructure connectivity.According to the research logic of “theoretical basis-phenomenon description-theoretical modeling-empirical analysis-conclusions and enlightenment”,this article demonstrates according to the following structure: In Chapter 1,the research background and significance of the thesis are introduced,and reviewed and the main existing literature and theoretical basis around the research questions of this article is reviewed.Chapter 2 summarizes and analyzes the evolution trend of urban spatial structure and the characteristics of China's participation in the division of labor in Global Value Chains based on global and Chinese perspectives,and analyzes the Chinese companies' profitability and the location of the division of labor in the Global Value Chains.The status of the division of labor in the Global Value Chains was measured,and the possible logic and relationship between the spatial structure of industrial agglomeration and the division of labor in the Global Value Chains were preliminarily proposed.In Chapter 3,the transaction cost externalities and technological externalities of the urban spatial structure are added respectively on the basis of the Kee and Tang(2016)model,and the determination mechanism of the domestic value-added rate of the company's exports and the company's Global Value Chains position is deduced.Based on the existing research foundation,this paper discusses the possible influence channels of the urban single-center agglomeration and the poly-centric structure on the upgrading of Chinese corporate in Global Value Chains,and establishes the theoretical framework and foundations of this research through logical deduction.In terms of the “quantity” of the upgrade in Global Value Chains,three determinants of the domestic value-added rate of the company's exports are obtained through the construction of mathematical modeling: the mark-up of the corporate,the relative domestic and foreign prices of intermediate products,and the cost of transportation at home and abroad.And the urban spatial structure can affect the profitability of the enterprises in GVCs through three channels: “price effect”,“substitution effect” and “transaction cost effect”.The increase of mark-up means an increase in product prices and an increase in profits,which in turn can promote an increase in corporate export DVAR(price effect);at the same time,the decline in the relative price of domestic intermediate products will cause companies to use more domestic intermediate products to substitute imported intermediate products,and thus increase the DVAR(substitution effect)of the company's exports;in addition,with the same international transportation and transaction costs,the lower the domestic transaction transportation cost,the higher the company's export DVAR(transaction cost effect).In the “quality” aspect of the upgrade of the corporate in Global Value Chains,the technical externalities of the urban spatial structure and the reverse derivation of the domestic value added rate of exports are introduced to construct the technical level parameters that measure the production location of corporate in Global Value Chains,and analyze the decision-making mechanism for the upgrading of production technology in the Global Value Chains of a company.In Chapters 4 to 6,based on the empirical data of Chinese cities and enterprises,we examine the impact of different levels of urban spatial structure on the upgrade of Chinese enterprises in Global Value Chains from different geographic levels and spatial dimensions of cities,provinces,and urban agglomerations.Firstly,the city scale has an non-linear effect of “inverted U” on a company's profitability in Global Value Chains,in which the price effect and the substitution effect have significantly promoted the upgrade of the corporate in Global Value Chain.The overall “inverted U” relationship is mainly driven by the transaction cost effect.The improvement of the city's internal infrastructure and the maturity of marketization can both improve the resource-carrying capacity within the city by maximizing the release of the city's agglomeration effect,which in turn boosts the rise of the position of corporate in GVCs;the city scale has a major impact on the upgrade of the locations of a company in Global Value Chains through R&D innovation channels and the transaction cost reduction mechanism caused by the market-oriented development of big cities.Chapter 5 focuses on the impact of the agglomeration externalities of the provincial-level poly-centric structure on the upgrade of the enterprises in Global Value Chains.Through empirical testing,it is found that the agglomeration effect of the provincial poly-centric structure depends on the degree of industrial agglomeration and urbanization of a single city.Only when a certain threshold is reached,can the poly-centric structure exert a positive effect on the upgrade of the companies in Global Value Chains.The results of the heterogeneity test show that the effect of the urban poly-centric structure on the upgrade of the corporate in Global Value Chain presents a declining characteristic from east to west,which is due to the low level of economic development and industrial agglomeration in the central and western regions,and the relatively scattered economic activities.It is not easy for cities to form a division of labor network that supports each other and develops in coordination.Therefore,the agglomeration effect of the poly-centric structure of eastern and western cities is difficult to play;from the perspective of industry characteristics,high-tech industries have a strong impact on agglomeration and division of labor due to their own technical characteristics which the collaborative environment is highly dependent.In a city with a poly-centric structure,the city network can be fully utilized to achieve collaborative innovation,while low-tech industries can fully enjoy the dividends of technological spillovers in cities with a poly-centric structure;from the perspective of trade mode,since the production input of non-processing trade mainly comes from domestic and foreign sources,the intermediate products it needs have greater flexibility in substitution than processing trade in the domestic and international markets,the “substitution effect” of the poly-centric structure is stronger,so it has a greater impact on the domestic value-added rate of non-processing trade exports.Chapter 6 takes 20 urban agglomerations in China as the object to discuss the mechanism of the multi-provincial urban poly-centric structure on the Global Value Chains upgrade from the regional level,and finds that the integrated degree of the market is crucial to the moderating effect of poly-centric structure since the administrative boundary across the regional level is more obvious.The higher the degree of urban integration?the freer the flow of population between cities,and the higher the accessibility of cities,the more conducive to the agglomeration effect within urban agglomerations to promote the upgrading of the status of enterprises in the division of labor in the Global Value Chain.Based on the above conclusions,the last part of the thesis puts forward specific policy recommendations on how to make use of the agglomeration effect of urban spatial structure to promote the effective upgrade of Chinese enterprises in the Global Value Chains.In the current important period when China is committed to promoting the new development pattern of international and domestic “ dual cycles ”,an important focus is to maximize the agglomeration effect of China's huge population from a spatial perspective.While actively promoting the poly-centric development of the urban spatial structure,it is necessary to rationally lay out the central urban X functional clusters to better exert the synergies within and between cities.First of all,the cultivation of the industrial cluster system in the construction of urban agglomerations is an important carrier for exerting the effect of industrial agglomeration within the urban agglomeration.Therefore,the cultivation and establishment of a modern industrial cluster system is the basis for the construction of urban agglomerations.Secondly,it is necessary to break the administrative barriers within the urban area and remove the spatial barriers to the flow of labor between regions,give full play to the power of the market,and realize the integrated development of the market in the construction of urban agglomerations.Finally,the interconnection of the transportation infrastructure within the urban agglomerations will help the urban agglomerations to generate stronger synergy through collaborative division of labor,thereby enhancing the spillover effect of the spatial agglomeration effect on the corporate GVC upgrade,and establishing China's economic “internal circulation” through the urban agglomeration.A complete industrial cluster system will effectively promote the rise of Chinese enterprises' position in the international cycle dominated by GVC.In the context of the continuous reorganization and integration of Global Value Chains and urban systems,research on the relationship between urban spatial structure and the status of Chinese companies in Global Value Chains is helpful to understand,formulate and improve urban planning policy systems from an open perspective,and find the focal point of regional integration development to improve the external effects of industrial agglomeration;it is also conducive to cultivating the Domestic Value Chains on the basis of the division of labor in urban agglomerations,and promotes the positive interaction between the Domestic Value Chains and the Global Value Chains.In this way,Chinese companies may find a new possible path to improve the profitability in the Global Value Chains and realizing a breakthrough to jump out of the low end of the Global Value Chains.Compared with previous studies,the main innovations of this study are as follows: Firstly,this article jumps out of the traditional agglomeration theory emphasizing the inertial thinking of the economy of quantity and scale,and examines the agglomeration externalities,richness and diversity of urban poly-centric structures from the perspective of the spatial form of agglomeration,which expands the connotation of the agglomeration theory,and at the same time develops the theory of spatial development from “essential-oriented theory”,“function-oriented theory”,and “capability-oriented theory” to the field of“value-oriented theory”.Secondly,different from previous research perspectives,this study provides a new explanation for the possible path of Global Value Chain upgrading from a new perspective of economic spatial organization structure and agglomeration spatial form,and explore the interaction between GVC upgrading and the optimization of urban spatial resources.Besides,this study not only discussed the impact of the expansion of the scale of central cities on the upgrade effect of Global Value Chains,but also paid attention to the possible effects of urban agglomerations on the GVCs,such as a spatial form that transcends a single city and the form of poly-centric agglomeration.The externality mechanism supplements and expands the interpretation of existing mechanisms and channels for the upgrading of firms in Global Value Chain. |
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