| Since 2012,China’s economic geography has presented new situations and problems,which are mainly manifested in the widening North-South inequality.The northern region is inferior to the southern region in terms of economic aggregate,per capita volume,growth rate,etc.The "North-South gap" has become an important issue affecting the coordination and high-quality development of China’s regional economy,and has aroused widespread concern from all walks of life.The Opinions on Establishing a More Effective New Mechanism for Regional Coordinated Development issued by the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and the State Council put forward the idea of "establishing a new model of urban agglomeration development led by central cities,urban agglomeration driving regional development,and promoting the integration and interactive development between regional plates",which means that urban agglomeration,as the main carrier and important form of China’s regional integrated development,has become the key support for the coordinated development of regional economy.However,observing the development process of China’s urban agglomeration policy,we noticed a phenomenon: in order to promote the coordinated and high-quality development of China’s regions,the State Council has successively approved 11 national urban agglomeration development plans since 2010,including five urban agglomerations in the south and six urban agglomerations in the north,and found that the North-South economic gap has also gradually widened since the approval of the national urban agglomeration development plan.So,it is worth considering what is the source of the North-South economic gap? What are the differences in economic convergence between the North and the South? whether the national urban agglomeration planning has affected the economic convergence between the North and the South,and thus the economic gap between the North and the South? What is the difference in the degree of impact? What is the impact mechanism? At present,the theoretical circle cannot explain these problems well,which is the starting point of this paper.Therefore,based on revealing the economic gap between the North and the South and the characteristics and facts of economic convergence between the North and the South,this paper regards urban agglomeration planning as an important policy impact,and discusses the reasons and channel mechanisms behind the expansion of the economic gap between the North and the South from the perspective of the differences in policy effects of urban agglomeration between the North and the South,with a view to providing theoretical reference and empirical support for the idea of promoting the coordinated development of the North and the South through the implementation of national urban agglomeration planning in China.Through the analysis and research of this paper,the conclusions are summarized as follows:Firstly,the imbalance of urban economic development between the North and the South is the main source of the economic gap between the North and the South.First of all,based on the data of 284 cities in China from 2001 to 2019,using Dagum Gini coefficient analysis,it is found that the urban economic gap in the north and south regions has the highest contribution rate to the overall economic gap between the north and the south,followed by the super-variable density,and the regional gap is the lowest,this shows that the intra-regional gap is an important reason for the economic gap between the North and the South.Then,through the dynamic evolution analysis of the urban economic gap between the north and the south by the traditional Markov chain and the spatial Markov chain,it is found that the element values on all diagonal lines in the state transition probability matrix of the south and the north are greater than the element values on the non-diagonal lines,that is,there is a significant "Matthew effect" in the economic growth between the cities in the north and the south.In addition,we also found that the upward transfer probability of economic growth in southern cities is greater than the downward transfer probability,while the downward transfer probability of economic growth in northern cities is greater than the upward transfer probability,which means that the transition effect of economic growth in southern cities is stronger than that in northern cities.Secondly,the degree of economic convergence of southern cities is stronger than that of northern cities,and the degree of economic convergence of southern cities from the perspective of urban agglomeration is strengthened than that of the overall urban perspective,while the degree of economic convergence of northern cities is weakened.First of all,taking 284 cities in China from 2001 to 2019 as the research object,using the general convergence model and the spatial convergence model to empirically test the convergence of economic growth in northern and southern cities,it was found that the degree of economic convergence in southern cities was significantly stronger than that in northern cities,and the growth rate of economic convergence in southern cities was far higher than that in northern cities since 2010,and the conclusion was still valid after the robustness test.Then,214 cities out of the19 urban agglomerations mentioned in the "Fourteenth Five-Year Plan" are taken as the research object.After the empirical test of the economic convergence of the southern and northern urban agglomerations using the general convergence model and the spatial convergence model,it is found that the economic convergence of the southern urban agglomerations is stronger than that of the northern urban agglomerations,and the conclusion is still valid through the robustness test.Comparing the convergence results of the urban agglomeration sample with the results of the overall urban sample,it is found that the economic convergence degree of the southern urban agglomeration has improved,while the economic convergence degree of the northern urban agglomeration has decreased.Thirdly,the urban agglomeration policy has significantly promoted the economic convergence of southern cities,but has not promoted the economic convergence of northern cities,and the impact of urban agglomeration policy on the economic convergence of cities with different characteristics is heterogeneous.First of all,based on 214 urban samples from 19 urban agglomerations from 2001 to 2019,this paper takes the development planning of national urban agglomerations as a quasi-natural experiment,and empirically tests the impact of national urban agglomeration planning on the economic convergence of the north and the south through the multi-node double difference method.Taking the development planning of 11 urban agglomerations in the country as a quasi-natural experiment,taking 157 cities in the planning as a treatment group,and 57 other cities as a control group,it is concluded that the national urban agglomeration planning in China has significantly promoted the economic convergence of the internal cities on the whole through the multi-node double difference method;Take the development planning of five urban agglomerations in the southern region as a quasi-natural experiment,treat 89 cities in the planning as a treatment group,and the other 125 cities as a control group.Through the multi-node double difference method,it is found that the planning of the southern urban agglomeration has promoted the urban economic convergence in its interior;Taking the development planning of six urban agglomerations in the northern region as a quasi-natural experiment,taking 68 cities in the planning as the treatment group,and 146 other cities as the control group,we found that the planning of northern urban agglomerations has not played a significant role in promoting the urban economic convergence within the planning through the multi-node double difference method.The above conclusions are still valid through a series of robustness tests.Then,the heterogeneity analysis found that the impact of the southern urban agglomeration planning on the economic convergence of the central city was not significant,and the economic convergence of the surrounding city was significantly promoted,and the multi-center nature of the urban agglomeration weakened the economic convergence effect of the urban agglomeration planning;the southern urban agglomeration planning has played a significant role in promoting the economic convergence of both high-level and low-level cities,and the promotion of high-level cities is more obvious than that of low-level cities;the southern urban agglomeration planning has promoted the economic convergence of non-resource-based cities,but the economic convergence of resource-based cities has not been shown;the planning of urban agglomeration in the south plays a stronger role in promoting the optimization and upgrading of urban agglomeration than in developing and cultivating urban agglomeration.The analysis of the heterogeneity of the northern urban agglomeration found that the planning policies of the northern urban agglomeration failed to have a positive effect on the economic convergence of the central cities and the peripheral cities,and the multi-center characteristics of the urban agglomeration can strengthen the economic convergence of the peripheral cities;the planning policy of the northern urban agglomeration has also failed to have a positive effect on the economic convergence of high-level cities and low-level cities,resource-based cities and non-resource-based cities,optimization and upgrading,and development and cultivation of urban agglomeration.Fourthly,in the process of promoting urban economic convergence in the southern urban agglomeration policy,the economic linkage mechanism and industrial division mechanism have played a positive role,while the market unification mechanism has played a restraining role,while none of the three mechanisms has played a positive role in the planning of the northern urban agglomeration.Considering the availability of data and the representativeness of urban agglomeration in the north and south,this paper takes the Yangtze River Delta urban agglomeration and the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei urban agglomeration as the representative cases of urban agglomeration in the south and the north respectively,and uses the cross-effect model to empirically test the three possible mechanisms of economic linkage mechanism,industrial division mechanism and market unification mechanism proposed by referring to existing studies.The test results of the impact mechanism show that the planning of the Yangtze River Delta urban agglomeration can strengthen the economic links between cities within the urban agglomeration,optimize the industrial division among cities within the urban agglomeration,and promote the economic convergence of the internal cities.However,the planning of the Yangtze River Delta urban agglomeration cannot promote the economic convergence of the cities by achieving the market unification between cities,and the market unification also plays a certain role in inhibiting.As for the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei urban agglomeration in the north,the mechanism test results show that the economic linkage mechanism,industrial division mechanism and market unification mechanism of the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei urban agglomeration planning have not played a significant positive role in urban economic convergence,and even have a significant inhibitory effect.Finally,combined with the theoretical and empirical research conclusions,the paper puts forward policy recommendations on optimizing the construction of urban agglomeration and promoting the coordinated development of the economy of the north and the south from the aspects of correctly understanding the problem of the economic gap between the north and the south in the new era,paying attention to the programmatic role of national planning,constantly expanding the economic radiation capacity of urban agglomeration,focusing on improving the level of industrial coordinated development of urban agglomeration,and accelerating the construction of a unified market of urban agglomeration. |
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