Effects of the pilot policy on integrated urban-rural development in China: A quasi-natural experiment analysis

IF 6.6 1区经济学 Q1 URBAN STUDIES

Cities Pub Date : 2025-09-08 DOI:10.1016/j.cities.2025.106420

Benwu Xiang, Yangyang Chen, Yali Zhang

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引用次数: 0

Abstract

How to narrow the development gap between urban and rural areas is a critical challenge for developing countries. Therefore, China has carried out a pilot policy designed to promoting urban-rural integration development. However, prior research has disregarded the effect of this pilot policy on coordinated urban-rural development in China. This study aims to investigate the impact of urban-rural integration development pilot policies on the level of urban-rural integration in China and their potential mechanisms. To this end, this study utilizes data from Chinese counties covering 2704 counties (cities and districts), and employs the difference-in-differences method. The findings highlight that the pilot policy had significantly hoisted the level of urban-rural integration development in China. Meanwhile, the policy effects exhibit notable regional heterogeneity, with significant improvements observed in the municipal districts, other county-level administrative regions, and the eastern, central, and western regions. Furthermore, the pilot policy effectively improves the level of urban-rural integration at the county level through the mechanism of facilitating the flow of production factors between urban and rural areas.

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试点政策对中国城乡一体化发展的影响：一个准自然实验分析

如何缩小城乡发展差距，是发展中国家面临的重大挑战。因此，中国开展了促进城乡一体化发展的试点政策。然而，以往的研究忽视了这一试点政策对中国城乡协调发展的影响。本研究旨在探讨城乡一体化发展试点政策对中国城乡一体化水平的影响及其潜在机制。为此，本研究利用中国2704个县（市、区）的数据，采用差异中差异法。研究结果强调，试点政策显著提升了中国城乡一体化发展水平。同时，政策效果表现出显著的区域异质性，市辖区、其他县级行政区域以及东、中、西部地区均有显著改善。此外，试点政策通过促进城乡生产要素流动的机制，有效提高了县域城乡一体化水平。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

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来源期刊

Cities URBAN STUDIES-

CiteScore

11.20

自引率

9.00%

发文量

517

期刊介绍： Cities offers a comprehensive range of articles on all aspects of urban policy. It provides an international and interdisciplinary platform for the exchange of ideas and information between urban planners and policy makers from national and local government, non-government organizations, academia and consultancy. The primary aims of the journal are to analyse and assess past and present urban development and management as a reflection of effective, ineffective and non-existent planning policies; and the promotion of the implementation of appropriate urban policies in both the developed and the developing world.