Mechanism And Empirical Analysis On The Impact Of Export Opening On Urban Growth

Urban growth is a hot topic in the field of urban economics.In recent years,discussions on the size distribution of cities and the optimal size of cities have never stopped,especially in China,a country with unbalanced urban development.The future trend of urban size is particularly important.Before that,we need to solve a basic problem,that is,what determines the urban growth of China.For China,export,as one of the three troikas to promote economic growth,has occupied an important position in the urban economy for a long time and has an irreplaceable impetus to the development of the city.Therefore,from the perspective of export,this paper combines urban economics and international trade theory to conduct a mechanism analysis and empirical research on China’s export opening and urban growth.The whole content of this paper includes six chapters: The first chapter explains the current situation of China’s economic and urban development,highlighting the importance and necessity of the research topic.The second chapter reviews the connotation and measurement methods of urban growth.According to the urban growth indicators used in the existing literature,we have adopted the employment population.Then,the literature about urban growth theories and the factors affecting urban growth.Finally,the main influencing factor of urban growth in China,export opening,is proposed.The third chapter introduces the status quo of China’s export trade and urban employment population growth,and we also compare different cities to grasp the trend and regional differences.The fourth chapter mainly explains the impact mechanism from the positive and negative effects of export opening,especially focusing on the productivity and employment level.The fifth chapter establishes the basic measurement model needed for this study.we combined with the 2006-2013 China’s prefecture-level city panel data to empirically test the export opening and urban growth Using the employment population data.And we use instrumental variables of export openness to solve endogenous problems.finally,we have made the robustness test by reducing the sample cities and using urban lighting data instead of the employment population.The sixth chapter draws the main conclusions of this paper based on the empirical results,and puts forward the recommendations that are conducive to China’s urban growth and the shortcomings and future research directions of this paper.Through the study of this paper,the following main conclusions are drawn: First,export opening can significantly promote the growth of China’s urban scale;secondly,the growth of China’s urban population size is convergent,and the growth rate between cities is gradually narrowing;the industrial structure moderating effect test results show the secondary industry will promote the increase of export openness,thereby enhancing the role of exports in promoting urban population growth.The mechanism test of this paper confirms that export openness ultimately promotes the growth of urban employment population through the way of urban productivity.