{"title":"Yesterday's solution: Do national economic and technological development zones promote industrial development in typical developing regions of China?","authors":"Zhicong Ye , Li Ma , Fengjun Jin","doi":"10.1016/j.habitatint.2024.103156","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>With the proliferation of special economic zones (SEZs) among emerging economies, their mixed performance has sparked discussions on contextual heterogeneity and underlying driving mechanisms. Characterized by an outward-oriented economy and industry-city interaction, the cross-stage establishment practice of China's national economic and technological development zones (ETDZs) is conducive to expanding existing research focused on cross-country analyses of SEZs. This study constructs difference-in-differences models to analyze the influence of national ETDZs on regional industrial development in the Yellow River basin, a typical developing region in China, from 2003 to 2019, evaluating their performance under a regional balanced development strategy and a within a lagging economic backdrop. The results indicate that (1) national ETDZs do not contribute to industrial growth and even exert a negative effect; (2) while they fail to perform better over time, their spatial spillover effect slightly benefits neighboring cities; (3) an optimal economic environment and proactive policy promotion can respectively mitigate and exacerbate their negative effects; (4) the inability to attract external enterprises and achieve industrial restructuring is the primary cause of the negative effect, highlighting a mismatch and discord between the economic and policy attributes of national ETDZs and evolving contexts. Based on these findings, recommendations are proposed to cultivate SEZs as suitable policy platforms and effective economic spaces.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":48376,"journal":{"name":"Habitat International","volume":"152 ","pages":"Article 103156"},"PeriodicalIF":6.5000,"publicationDate":"2024-08-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Habitat International","FirstCategoryId":"96","ListUrlMain":"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0197397524001565","RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"DEVELOPMENT STUDIES","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
With the proliferation of special economic zones (SEZs) among emerging economies, their mixed performance has sparked discussions on contextual heterogeneity and underlying driving mechanisms. Characterized by an outward-oriented economy and industry-city interaction, the cross-stage establishment practice of China's national economic and technological development zones (ETDZs) is conducive to expanding existing research focused on cross-country analyses of SEZs. This study constructs difference-in-differences models to analyze the influence of national ETDZs on regional industrial development in the Yellow River basin, a typical developing region in China, from 2003 to 2019, evaluating their performance under a regional balanced development strategy and a within a lagging economic backdrop. The results indicate that (1) national ETDZs do not contribute to industrial growth and even exert a negative effect; (2) while they fail to perform better over time, their spatial spillover effect slightly benefits neighboring cities; (3) an optimal economic environment and proactive policy promotion can respectively mitigate and exacerbate their negative effects; (4) the inability to attract external enterprises and achieve industrial restructuring is the primary cause of the negative effect, highlighting a mismatch and discord between the economic and policy attributes of national ETDZs and evolving contexts. Based on these findings, recommendations are proposed to cultivate SEZs as suitable policy platforms and effective economic spaces.
期刊介绍:
Habitat International is dedicated to the study of urban and rural human settlements: their planning, design, production and management. Its main focus is on urbanisation in its broadest sense in the developing world. However, increasingly the interrelationships and linkages between cities and towns in the developing and developed worlds are becoming apparent and solutions to the problems that result are urgently required. The economic, social, technological and political systems of the world are intertwined and changes in one region almost always affect other regions.