MEASUREMENT OF AGGLOMERATION ECONOMIES AT COUNTY LEVEL IN JIANGSU PROVINCE

Agglomeration economies are the important factors for the regional development. However, the common indicators to measure them, such as Gini Coefficients neglect the spatial ingredient of data, leading to a-spatial estimates. In order to assess spatial neighbor effects of agglomeration economies, this study makes the new attempts by applying a series of techniques of spatial autocorrelation analysis, specifically, measuring the economies of urbanization and localization at the county level in the secondary and tertiary industries of Jiangsu Province in 1999 and 2002. The conclusions in this study reveal that on the whole, the localization effects on the economies of the secondary industry might be stronger than urbanization effects for that period, and highly agglomerative economies were limited within the southern Jiangsu and parts of middle along the Changjiang (Yangtze) River. Moreover, the tertiary industry has been strong urbanization rather than localization economies in the whole Jiangsu. Unlike the secondary industry, the tertiary industry held the high levels of agglomeration economies can be also found in the poor northern Jiangsu, and then the spatial clusters of trade and services might be basically seen in each of urban districts in 13 cities. All in all, spatial autocorrelation analysis is a better method to test agglomeration economies.

An Empirical Study on Agglomeration Economies and Optimal Agglomeration for China＇s Manufacturing Industries

Employing the statistics of 750, 000 firms obtained from China ＇s Third National Industrial Census, this paper estimates the production functions of 112 3-digit industries in four categories to examine the patterns of agglomeration economies, optimal scale of agglomeration, and the endogeneity of agglomeration level in manufacturing industries. Results indicate the existence of localization economies at city level and urbanization economies at province level, while the latter has very small economic significance. Decreasing returns to scale at firm level suggest that the source of agglomeration economies is technological externality emphasized by urban economic theory. With a rising scale, agglomeration economies exhibit an inverted U-shaped curve. Each industry has an optimal scale of agglomeration where the agglomeration economy is maximized. However, the actual scale of agglomeration is generally far lower than the optimal level. Corresponding to the optimal scale of agglomeration, the level of industrial agglomeration measured by the index is endogenous.

Economic structure and environmental quality and their impact on changing land use efficiency in China

Extensive urban land expansion and heavy industrialization have increased energy consumption and caused environmental problems, both of which present serious threats to humans. Consequently, improved land use efficiency and realization of green development are imperative. Based on a detailed analysis of spatial- temporal evolution of urban land use efficiency, this paper analyzes the synergistic effect of industrial structure and city size, as well as the effect of environmental quality, by using panel data from 283 cities at or above prefecture- level in China from 2003 to 2012. It was concluded that 1） environmental quality has an obvious ＂crowding out effect＂ on urban land use efficiency and 2） urban land use efficiency shows a significant spatial auto-correlation. The effect of industrial structure is dependent on popula- tion size of the city. It has been found that a threshold population size of more than 108.45 （10,000 persons） is needed for an optimized benefit from industrial linkages. The urban population size presents an inverted-U shape against the urban land use efficiency, and the marginal benefit of urban size increases when the industrial structure shifts from secondary industry to tertiary industry. Additionally we found that the actual urban size of 98.2% is less than the cities＇ optimal sizes.