异地商会与城市间产业结构趋同--基于比较优势视角的分析

Regional Chambers of Commerce and Urban Industrial Structure Convergence:From the Perspective of Comparative Advantages

引导地区产业结构调整与升级是实现区域经济协调发展的重要路径之一。文章从异地商会这一正式社会网络视角,探讨了其对城市产业结构调整方向的影响效应及作用机制。文章基于中国工业企业数据和手工收集的市级异地商会等数据,以长三角41个地级市为研究对象,采用双重差分法,研究发现:(1)从整体上讲,异地商会建立后,其现经营地的产业结构会和原籍地上一年的产业结构趋同,这一结论在替换变量、子样本等一系列稳健性检验中也成立;(2)作用路径是异地商会通过促进资金、技术等跨地区流动,从而促使其经营地发展原籍地比较优势产业,并在该产业上逐渐获得比较优势,促使城市间产业结构趋同;(3)异地商会也会考虑两地资源禀赋差异等,引导企业进行差异化产业竞争,从而促使城市间产业结构趋异。文章为区域一体化发展背景下发挥行业协会商会等跨区域社会组织的作用,从而为知识跨地区扩散、地区产业结构优化升级以及区域经济协调发展等提供了有益参考。

Over the past four decades of reform and opening up,China's economy has maintained an impressive average annual growth rate of 9.2%,but there are prominent problems of unbalanced and uncoordinated regional economic development.As reflected in industrial development,there are huge differences in the industrial structure between regions.Theoretically,disparities in knowledge acquisition capabilities may result in unbalanced industrial growth among regions,consequently leading to unbalanced economic development at the regional level.Regional connections serve as a potential solution to break the path lock of local industrial development,then guiding the adjustment and upgrading of regional industrial structures.As a bridge connecting their place of origin and operation,how do regional chambers of commerce(RCoCs)affect the adjustment of regional industrial structures?Clarifying this issue is of paramount importance for promoting a rational division and collaboration of industries among regions and achieving coordinated regional economic development.This paper manually collects data on RCoCs at the city level,and utilizes the DID method to investigate how RCoCs affect the direction of regional industrial structure adjustment,measured by the industrial structural similarity between pairs of cities based on the China Industrial Enterprise Database from 2000 to 2013.The Yangtze River Delta region,characterized by high economic development,openness,and chamber of commerce activity,serves as the primary research object.This paper finds that,on the whole,after the establishment of the RCoC,the industrial structure of its place of operation becomes similar to that of its place of origin in the preceding year.Mechanism analysis reveals that RCoCs facilitate knowledge diffusion in industries with comparative advantages by guiding enterprises to invest across regions,thereby promoting the convergence of industrial structures between the two places.However,certain cities also take into account the differences in resource endowments between the two places and compete in differentiated industries,leading to the divergence of industrial structures between cities.Furthermore,the convergence of industrial structures,driven by cross-city chambers of commerce,is desirable and conducive to the realization of coordinated economic development among cities.Expanding the scope of the study to the entire country,this paper finds that the establishment of out-of-town chambers of commerce between cities in the eastern region or the Yangtze River Basin contributes to the convergence of industrial structures between the two places.The marginal contributions of this paper are as follows:First,it provides a novel explanation for the convergence of industrial structures between regions from the perspective of the formal social network of RCoCs.Second,it delves deeper into the impact and mechanism of municipal-level(rather than provincial-level)nonlocal chambers of commerce on the direction of urban industrial structure adjustment,thereby expanding the scope of research on the economic impact of RCoCs.Third,the conclusions have strong practical significance,and provide a theoretical foundation for leveraging non-local chambers of commerce as a means to promote the replication and diffusion of successful industrial development experiences between regions.