Market Access, Industry Agglomeration And Regional Disparity

Since reform and opening-up, Yangtze River Delta Region in China has made remarkable achievements in economic development. In 2014, State Council has clearly pointed out in Guidelines for Economic Development of Yangtze River Region by Relying on Gold Waterway that the city agglomeration of Yangtze River Delta Region shall improve the international economic competitiveness and play the leading role for opening-up. However, the speed of development for different cities in the region varies and the regional disparities keep widening. Taking Yangtze River Delta Region as example, this thesis applies the analysis frame of New Economic Geography (NEG) theory to interpret the internal impact of spatial distribution of industry activities on regional disparity and tries to give answers for the following two questions.What’s the internal system for spatial distribution of industry activities in Yangtze River Delta Region? What’s the impact of the distribution type of industrial activities on regional disparity of Yangtze River Delta Region?This thesis has six chapters. The main contents of each chapter are described as follows:Chapter One Introduction includes four parts, respectively about backgrounds, significance and possible innovation, approach and tools as well as basic structure of the thesis. Chapter Two Literature Review is described in two aspects. New Economic Geography (NEG) Theory is used to explain industrial aggregation mechanism, which forms the theatrical basis for the study on the internal mechanism of industrial aggregation in Yangtze River Delta Region. The combination of New Economic Geography (NEG) Theory and Endogenous Growth Theory provides the basis for the study on economic growth effect and regional disparity of such industrial aggregation. Chapter Three Characteristics and Facts about Spatial Distribution of Economic Activities in Yangtze River Delta Region. Gini Coefficient of the industrial aggregation in this area is decomposed from the industrial level and it is found out that the secondary industry is the main reason to form the economic development disparities among the cities within the region. In this base, the spatial distribution of the manufacturing industry which is easy to form the aggregation is investigated. HHI index is used to check the overall aggregation tendency for the manufacturing industry in different cities of the region. In addition, Location Quotient is adopted to evaluate the changing tendency and characteristics of manufacturing industry in different cities of the region. It is concluded that the spatial distribution of the manufacturing industry is unbalanced in the region and such unbalancing keeps widening. Finally, in Chapter Three, the evaluation is made in view of two aspects the core factor of New Economic Geography (NEG) Theory-Market Access, named market access in the region and market access out the region. It is found out that the area with higher market access usually have higher aggregation rate. Chapter Four Analysis for Market Access and Industry Aggregation of Yangtze River Delta Region. By combination of C-P model of New Economic Geography (NEG) Theory and the manufacturing industry zone selection model, the factors to impact the zone selection of enterprise are found out. Considering the possible simultaneous endogenous of the model, the empirical analysis will deal with the explanatory variable with a lag phase. Chapter Five Empirical Analysis for Industrial Aggregation Effect on Regional Disparity. The impact mechanism of industrial aggregation on regional disparity is analyzed, and then, with the method of New Economic Geography (NEG) Theory expert, the impact model about industrial aggregation to production rate is established. By using this model, the effects of industry aggregation of Yangtze River Delta Region on regional disparity are emprically analyzed. Chapter Six Conclusion and Policy Recommendations summarizes the research conclusions and puts forward the feasible policy recommendations. In addition, this chapter also points out the possible deficiencies of the thesis.