Study On Economic Operating Efficiency Of Development Zones In Wuhan City Circle

After the reform and opening up,development zones have been the growth poles of regional economic development and have always played an important role.Wuhan City Circle is the core growth pole of Hubei Province and the strategic fulcrum of the Rise of Central China.The construction of development zones in Wuhan Urban Circle has made great achievements,but it also faces problems such as the assimilation of industrial structure,the poor industrial agglomeration,the low technical level,and the poor resource utilization efficiency.It is of practical significance to explore the economic operating efficiency of the development zones in Wuhan Urban Circle and its mechanism,not only to provide policy basis for the development zones during their transformation and upgrading,but to better promote the economic development of Wuhan Urban Circle,even Hubei Province and China.First of all,this paper sorts out the related researches in the economic operating efficiency of development zone and the development zones of Wuhan City Circle,and finds that there are blind spots in the study of the economic operating efficiency of the Wuhan City Circle development zones.Then it describes the development process of the Wuhan City Circle and the current situation to its development zones.Then it is determined that 47 national or provincial development zones in Wuhan City Circle are the objects of this study.This study is based on the theories of scale economy,industrial agglomeration,growth poles,and economic growth.Then,the DEA and Malmquist index methods are used to analyze the spatial features and sources of the economic operating efficiency of the development zone from static and dynamic perspectives.The main conclusions include:(1)In terms of static analysis,between 2011 and 2016,the static comprehensive technical efficiency of 47 development zones in Wuhan City Circle is a bit far from the best production frontier.Pure technical efficiency promotes the comprehensive technical efficiency,while low-scale efficiency prevents the further improvement of comprehensive technical efficiency.The spatial pattern of comprehensive technical efficiency shows strong stability.High-value areas are concentrated in the central and western parts of the Wuhan Circle,and scattered in the east.And it is found that the spatial pattern of pure technical efficiency shows a trend of transition from east to west,while the scale efficiency distribution was more divergent and balanced.(2)In terms of dynamic analysis,during the study period,from the overall perspective,the total factor productivity of these development zones has been improved by 0.6%per year.Technical progress has promoted the improvement of total factor productivity,but the decline in comprehensive technical efficiency has dragged down technical progress to make TFP more effective.The improvement of the comprehensive technical efficiency originates first from the pure technical efficiency,and secondly from the scale efficiency.From the regional perspective,in different regions,there is heterogeneity in the magnitude of improvement in the total factor productivity and the sources for development zones.From the level perspective,the performance of national development zones is better than provincial counterparts.This paper explores the factors of the economic operating efficiency of the development zone with the help of panel data model.The impacts of industrial enterprise scale,government intervention,outward economy,science and technology on the economic efficiency are positive,but land investment is not.It reflects that there may be extensive land investment in these development zones during the study period.It is necessary to limit the blind expansion of the development zone to further improve the economic operating efficiency.At the end of the study,three policy suggestions are proposed:First,fostering an innovation environment and promoting scientific research and transformation.Second,accelerating the development of industrial agglomeration to improve resource utilization and scale effects.Third,formulating preferential policies by local conditions to improve regional coordination.