How do manufacturing and producer service agglomerations affect urban innovation differently? Empirical evidence from China.

Despite the growing body of literature on the influence of industrial agglomeration on urban innovation, no consensus has been reached on the mechanism of the spillover effect. This empirical study exploits heterogeneity in spillover effects between manufacturing and producer service agglomerations on urban innovation based on a sample of 262 prefecture-level cities in China. We find some intriguing and new findings: (1) The threshold effect can be identified for the spillover effect of manufacturing agglomeration but not for that of producer service agglomeration. (2) Manufacturing and producer service agglomerations have opposite decomposition indirect effect. (3) The spatial spillover effect of industrial agglomeration can be restrained by absorptive capacity of nearby cities. This study not only provides empirical evidence for the reconciliation of the debate on the effect of manufacturing and producer service agglomeration, but also has important policy implication for reconsidering the role of industrial agglomeration in urban innovation.

Provincial division of economic zones based on the improved urban gravity model: A case study of Hunan Province, China.

Regional collaboration and the division of economic zones have been widely discussed for sustainable development. This paper aims at building a framework for analyzing the provincial division of economic zone (DEZ) via considering spatial interaction among regions based on the improved gravity model and clustering approaches. The proposed framework of province DEZ is applied in the case study of Hunan Province, China. The results reveal that Chenzhou city in the south of Hunan Province is always excluded from the DEZ due to its larger external gravity from other cities in neighboring provinces. It also shows that the city components of economic zones (EZs) have experienced a fluctuation at a higher degree from 2002 to 2006 to 2009 while it reached to a stable phase in 2013. Furthermore, cross-provincial regional integration and the highway construction have a significant impact on the change of city components of EZ. The findings are of great potential in regional planning that should be incorporated to the toolkit of regional policy and sustainable development for local governments.

Intensifier of urban economic resilience: Specialized or diversified agglomeration?

With increased uncertainty and instability worldwide, how to enhance the urban economy resilience effectively has become one main issue for urban economic development. Based on the measurement of the economic resilience of 241 cities at the prefecture level and above in China using the sensitive index method, we scrutinize the impact of industrial specialization agglomeration and diversification agglomeration on urban economic resilience. Results indicate that, during the impact resistance period, industrial diversification agglomeration, especially related industrial diversification agglomeration, can enhance urban economic resilience, whereas industrial specialization agglomeration has no positive effect. In contrast, during the period of recovery and adjustment, industrial specialization agglomeration can improve urban economic resilience, and industrial diversification agglomeration, especially related industrial diversification agglomeration, has no positive effect. Further analysis indicates that, under the interaction of specialization and diversification agglomerations, the effect of industrial agglomeration on urban economic resilience depends on the type of dual industrial agglomeration, showing remarkable heterogeneity. This study may provide useful references for policy makers concerned with urban resilience.