| The global economy is marked by changes and challenges unseen in a century,meaning that the previous global fragmentation of production is being disrupted and the volatility of the international environment increasing.Since 2008,the world economy is still recovering from the financial crisis,but the COVID-19 pandemic has again led to a global recession,reinforcing the change and challenge by a more complex development pattern in all countries of the world.In the Post-COVID-19 period,faced with increased uncertainty shocks and risks,it is a fundamental element of economic development and a key indicator of high-quality economic development for regions to withstand external disruptions and enhance economic resilience.For a long time,China's close integration with GVC has largely balanced the supply and demand of domestic production factors.China's economy has entered a period of new normal,constraints such as an aging population,debt leverage,environmental protection,and structural imbalances are prominent.While the reshaping of the global development pattern has also increased the uncertainty risk of China's external economy,which has had a significant impact on the macroeconomy,and the differences in development between regions have shown a tendency of continued expansion.Therefore,enhancing the regional economic resilience to cope with internal and external shocks has become an important strategic issue for national development.Economic development depends on the upgrading of productive capacities,which is a process of structural transformation and the accumulation of capabilities needed for transformation.Economic structure plays an important role in shaping regional performance in response to uncertainty shocks.In The 100th Anniversary of the Founding of The Communist Party of China and the first year of the 14th Five Year Plan,a new journey of socialism with Chinese characteristics is being launched based on building a moderately prosperous society in all respects.As a result,reshaping the comparative advantages of the region,improving the utilization efficiency of production factors,enhancing the production capacity of the region,optimizing the economic structure,and accelerating the transformation and upgrading,it is inevitable choice to enhance economic resilience and achieve high-quality regional economic growth.What is the path of accumulation of productive capacity endowment and industrial transformation and upgrading that will enable the region to promote economic growth more efficiently and increase its economic resilience to internal and external shocks?It is worth exploring whether we should follow a development path that is based on the strengths of existing capacity endowment,or whether we should place more emphasis on path innovation to achieve leapfrog development.Therefore,The paper systematically constructs the micro-level mechanisms of product space change affecting regional economic resilience.Using Chinese customs data,CEPIIBACI global trade data,and Chinese provincial-level data,this paper depicts product space change,industrial transformation and upgrading at the provincial level in China from 2001 to 2016 based on product space theory,and measures the economic resilience at the provincial level using the case method,the statistical indicator method,and the counterfactual method.In this way,the paper analyzes the path dependence and path innovation of economic resilience given the existing advantages of capacity endowments.Using Probit regression models and panel regressions as the research object that 30 provinces from 2001 to 2016,the study empirically analyzes the impact of product space change on resistance and recovery,as well as industrial structural transformation and upgrading under the path dependence of existing capacity endowment advantages.The endogeneity due to omitted variables and bidirectional causation and robustness of regression results are also discussed.The heterogeneity of provincial GDP per capita,degree of marketisation,the share of state-owned economy,and product type is further analyzed.At the same time,using the fitness landscape of a genetic algorithm,assuming that product span distance of 5 or 10 for the same and different capacity endowment advantages respectively,the product jump location selection algorithm is constructed to analyze the change products with a dominant comparative advantage and the degree of fitness in the province.This explores the optimal path for enhancing economic resilience.The findings are as follows:(1)Differences in economic resilience between regions are much greater than in levels of economic development.The paper uses provincial data to measure economic resilience through resistance,recovery,and industrial structural transformation and upgrading,and finds that the intra-regional and inter-regional development gaps in economic resilience across provinces are still large,with regional differences in economic resilience are much greater than the regional differences measured by economic development levels.And there is no clear "high-high" and "low-low" clustering of resistance and recovery.This result suggests that the previous discussion of regional uneven development through the level of economic development is still not sufficiently detailed to illustrate the differences in development paths between regions.Economic resilience provides a dynamic perspective on regional development processes and is a new way of analyzing uneven region development.Under the backdrop of heightened global uncertainty and risk,a comprehensive and in-depth examination of intra-regional development differentiation through the lens of regional resilience in response to shocks is key to the formulation of coordinated regional development policies.(2)Product space change is an important way to improve regional economic resilience.Product space change contributes significantly to regional economic resilience,which is a strong explanation for the divergence of regional development paths.According to product space theory,the product space network is a "centerperiphery" structure.With the evolution of product space,product density is increasing and products are clustering from the periphery to the center,showing an increase in the number of products with significant comparative advantage and the technical complexity of products,both quantitatively and qualitatively.The product space of Chinese provinces shows five different evolutionary characteristics,which are good and rising,good and slow,good but declining,poor and slow or even declining,and poor but fast-growing.For Shanghai is a good foundation and gradually rising,there are many products with significant comparative advantages and high technological complexity,and the probability of new products emerging is higher,and the recovery from shocks is stronger.While Shanxi is a poor foundation and developing slowly or even declining,has more products that are losing ground,and it is difficult to transform and upgrade its industry,which is less resistant and slower to recover from shocks.The evolution of product space through the accumulation of "quantitative and qualitative"endowments of productive capacity,is conducive to regional resistance and recovery,as well as the transformation and upgrading of industrial structures.(3)The effect of product space change on enhancing economic resilience is characterized by the path dependence of the advantages of capacity endowments.Product space theory suggests that the emergence of new products of comparative advantage depends on the existing dominant products of comparative advantage around them.It is related to the proximity of products to each other.The paper finds that the increased regional economic resilience follows existing productive capacity endowments in product space.Regions with productive capacity endowments are more resistant and recovered.At the same time,product space density has the dual effect of promoting the transformation and upgrading of the industrial structure and discouraging industrial decline,with the former effect being greater than the latter in general.Regions with a higher GDP per capita and marketisation have a lower degree of path dependence on the current capability endowment advantage for economic resilience enhancement and have a more pronounced deviation from the path of capability endowment advantage,and a more prominent differentiation in development between regions.Regions with a higher share of the state-owned are more dependent on the current capability endowment advantage,and hinder industrial transformation and upgrading,while the lower share of state-owned economies is not significant.For labor-intensive and capital-intensive products,current capacity endowment advantages have stronger effects for maintaining and hindering industrial recession.While industrial upgrading effects are significant for technology-intensive products.(4)The accumulation of productive capacity endowments and the technological complexity of products shape the path innovative for enhancing regional economic resilience.In the paper,the initial endowment of production capacity is set by the number of firms in the region,and the position of the product in the fitness landscape is analyzed according to the Von Neumann neighborhood.It is found that when provinces were set with different initial productive capacity endowments,assuming that products could jump a distance of 5 or 10,a similar development trend was observed.Regions with higher initial productive capacity endowments are more resilient in terms of adaptation and regional economic resilience,while regions with low initial productive capacity endowments experienced a possible growth trap.Thus increasing the accumulation of regional productive capacity endowments makes it easier to innovate through breakthrough paths,resulting in high technological sophistication and high value-added products,which enhances regional economic resilience.When provinces are assumed to have the same initial capacity endowment and a product jump distance of 5 or 10,there is no significant correlation between the initial production capacity endowment and the degree of adaptation.As the number of simulations increases,the development paths of the provinces are consistent with the trends under different initial capacity endowment assumptions,but with more pronounced growth club characteristics.As the product spanning distance increases from 5 to 10,the fitness gap between regions decreases.Although the number of initial firms is set at the same level across provinces,there are significant differences in the types of products,so the quality of the products becomes particularly important.More technology-intensive products have a greater potential for path innovation and accelerate structural transformation.It is a key factor for promoting economic resilience. |
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