Evaluation Of The Policy Effect Of The National Resource-based Economy Transformation Pilot Area

Shanxi Province is a typical resource-based province in China and even in the world.Due to various factors in the long-term development,it has gradually formed a deformed industrial structure dominated by traditional resource-based industries such as coal,coke,smelting and electricity,and lagging behind in the development of other non-resource-based industries.,resulting in a series of economic and social problems such as serious damage to the natural ecological environment in the region,low economic development efficiency,and serious lack of sustainable development capabilities.At present,my country’s development has entered a new normal and high-quality development stage,and it is imminent to promote the transformation and development of resource-based economy in resource-based regions such as Shanxi Province.In fact,as early as the 1990s,Shanxi Province has already begun to explore the transformation of resource-based economy.Although some achievements have been made,there has been no substantial change in the economic development mode of Shanxi Province’s dependence on resources.Until December 2010,the State Council approved the establishment of the"Shanxi Province National Resource-based Economic Transformation Comprehensive Supporting Reform Pilot Zone"（hereinafter referred to as the"Shanxi Comprehensive Reform Zone"）,which is the first approved resource-based economic transformation in my country.The provincial comprehensive reform pilot area.Today,Shanxi Comprehensive Reform Zone has been established for more than ten years.Shanxi Province has achieved positive results in many aspects,such as economic development,industrial transformation and environmental governance.It comprehensively and accurately evaluates the implementation effect of Shanxi Comprehensive Reform Zone policies,and analyzes Shanxi Province’s transition to a resource-based economy.The achievements in the process and the current deficiencies are of great significance for further promoting the transformation and reform of the resource-based economy in Shanxi Province and providing reference experience for the economic transformation of other resource-based cities.This paper regards the establishment of the comprehensive reform area in Shanxi as a quasi-natural experiment.With the help of the empirical research method of policy evaluation,from the perspective of sulfur dioxide emission,the implementation effect of the Shanxi comprehensive reform area policy and the mechanism of the policy’s role are discussed,and the Shanxi comprehensive reform area is analyzed.In view of the current deficiencies in the process of resource-based economic transformation in Shanxi Province,we draw on the experience of other cities at home and abroad,and put forward countermeasures and suggestions for further deepening and optimizing the resource-based economic transformation of Shanxi Province.Specifically,the arrangement of each chapter is as follows:Chapter 1 analyzes the research background,purpose and significance,etc.,and sorts out the current research results of domestic and foreign scholars on resource-based cities and their transformation and development.The second chapter firstly defines the basic concepts of this paper,including resource-based cities,resource-based economic transformation and policy evaluation,etc.,and then expounds the relevant theoretical foundations,including the resource curse theory,sustainable development theory and industrial structure theory Wait.The third chapter is specific to Shanxi Province,and sorts out the history of resource-based economic development and transformation development in Shanxi Province,as well as the difficulties faced by Shanxi Province,and summarizes and sorts out Shanxi Province since the establishment of the comprehensive reform area in Shanxi Province.policies and initial results achieved.The fourth chapter is the empirical research part.First,the research design is carried out in terms of method principles,samples,variables and their definitions,and then the panel data of 248 prefecture-level cities in my country from 2003 to 2018 are collected and sorted,using the double-difference propensity score matching method.From the perspectives of per capita sulfur dioxide emissions and per unit GDP sulfur dioxide emissions,the successful implementation effect of the Shanxi comprehensive reform area policy was discussed,and the placebo test,dynamic effect test and mechanism analysis were carried out.The fifth chapter is discussion and suggestion.First,it deeply analyzes the problems existing in the current process of resource-based economic transformation in Shanxi Province,and then analyzes the experience of urban resource-based economic transformation at home and abroad,and finally puts forward policy suggestions for the problems found.The sixth chapter is the conclusion and outlook,which mainly summarizes the research results of this paper and analyzes the shortcomings of this research and the areas that can be improved in future research.The results of the empirical research show that:First,the establishment of the comprehensive reform area in Shanxi significantly reduced the per capita SO₂emissions and the SO₂emissions per unit of GDP in Shanxi Province,and the research results passed the placebo test.Second,through the dynamic effect analysis of the policy effect of Shanxi comprehensive reform area,we found that there is a strong lag in the effect of Shanxi comprehensive reform area policy.The effect of reducing SO₂emissions from GDP is not significant.In the second stage of policy implementation（2016-2020）,the improvement effect on per capita SO₂and SO₂emissions per unit of GDP began to be significant,and over time,the improvement effect showed gradually increasing trend.Third,further mechanism testing shows that the comprehensive reform zone policy plays a role mainly by optimizing industrial structure,improving human capital,strengthening scientific and technological innovation and expanding opening to the outside world.had a certain negative impact.The innovations of this paper:First,the research content innovation.Combing through the existing literature and research results,it is found that the existing research on the transformation of resource-based economy is mainly based on the theoretical analysis to propose transformation suggestions and the construction of an evaluation index system to evaluate the transformation effect,and few studies rely on scientific policy evaluation methods to explore the effectiveness of the transformation.As an important pilot policy for the transformation of my country’s resource-based economy,Shanxi comprehensive reform area is currently lacking in literature research and needs to be enriched.With the help of the method in the field of policy evaluation,this paper studies whether the construction of the comprehensive reform area in Shanxi has really played its due role and the possible mechanism of action,and analyzes in detail the problems existing in the process of the transformation of the resource-based economy in Shanxi Province,and draws lessons from domestic and foreign successes Based on the experience of transformation,it puts forward policy suggestions to further promote the transformation of Shanxi’s resource-based economy.Second,research perspective innovation.The indicators for evaluating the effect of policy implementation are not uniform in the field of academic research.As a comprehensive regional policy,Shanxi Comprehensive Reform District can choose from various research perspectives,such as economic growth rate,economic development quality,environmental quality,Research from the perspective of industrial structure and technological innovation.However,this paper believes that for the transformation of resource-based regions,we should not pay too much attention to the speed and total amount of economic growth,but should pay more attention to the quality and efficiency of economic development and the improvement of environmental issues.Therefore,combined with the characteristics of"more coal and less gas"in Shanxi Province,this paper selects the per capita SO₂emissions and SO₂emissions per unit of regional GDP as the result variables to reflect the policy effect of the construction of the comprehensive reform area in Shanxi.The implementation effect,dynamic effect and influence mechanism are systematically inspected and evaluated.