The Impact of City Cluster Development on the Inter-City Disparity:Evidence from China

作     者：YANG Mengyu HU Bingxuan 

作者机构：The School of Economics Yunnan University 

出 版 物：《Chinese Journal of Urban and Environmental Studies》 (城市与环境研究(英文))

年 卷 期：2022年第10卷第1期

页      面：96-118页

学科分类：12[管理学] 1204[管理学-公共管理] 08[工学] 083301[工学-区域发展与规划] 0833[工学-城乡规划学] 

基　　金：funded by the “Studies on the Space-time Evolution and Strategic Improvement of Chinese City Clusters’ Spillover Effects” (No. 18CJY013) Program of National Social Science Foundation of China 

主　　题：City cluster inter-city disparity nighttime light 

摘      要：City clusters are important carriers for China s future urbanization and vital areas for promotingcoordinated regional development and common prosperity. The authors first divide the city clusters into Types Ⅰ, Ⅱ, and Ⅲ according to the characteristics of their development stages, and measure the degree of development of city clusters by using city-level night time light(NTL) data and inter-city commuting time, and empirically identify the types of China s city clusters. On that basis, the authors examine the influence of city cluster development on the inter-city disparity from a perspective of urban agglomeration. The results show that the development of Type Ⅰ city clusters can lead to the widest inter-city disparity, and that of Type Ⅱ city clusters ranks the second place in this regard, while that of Type Ⅲ city clusters can narrow the inter-city ***, using the 268-year historical geographic data of the Qing Dynasty, the authors construct instrumental variables to address the endogeneity issues, and find that the above conclusions are robust. This study also finds that the factor allocation for the development of Types Ⅰ and Ⅱ city clusters is oriented towards labor, while that for Type Ⅲ city clusters is oriented towards capital. Besides, different types of city clusters vary in the extent of correcting factor misallocation for their development. The differences in the orientation of factor allocation and the extent of factor misallocation correction constitute the main mechanism for the heterogeneous influence of city cluster development on the inter-city disparity. China s city cluster development strategy should adopt a category-based approach to avoid homogenization, conform to the objective laws, and make greater use of central cities spatial spillover effects.