Abstract
The location selection mechanism and effect of industrial transfer have been widely considered in academia, but the influence of institutional factors on cross-regional industrial transfer and regional differences still need further investigation. Based on theories of economic geography as well as new economic geography (NEG) and its’ institutional transformation, this paper studies the form, mechanism, and effect of the “core–periphery” regional relationship between the Pearl River Delta (PRD) and non-Pearl River Delta (NPRD) areas in Guangdong Province from the micro perspective of industrial spatial organization. Based on a case study on the change of the cross-regional production spatial organization of ceramics enterprises between Foshan and Qingyuan, it is found that after three rounds of spatial reorganization, the production spatial organization of Foshan’s and Qingyuan’s ceramics industries has changed significantly, forming a multifactory, multilocation production spatial structure and regional production network, which further drives to form the regional functional division of “core–periphery”. Institution factors, especially environmental regulation and industrial transfer institutional arrangements, have become an important driving force for the current industrial transfer, but its impact on regional relations is still not a decisive factor. The path locking of the “core–periphery” mode has not been fundamentally broken through. Although the form of spatial inequality has greatly changed, in fact, it produces a new form of inequality. The economic, geographical, and political theoretical framework from the micro-perspective of enterprises will provide a possible theoretical explanation for the phenomenon of “pollution moving to the West, high-tech industry moving to the East, industrial output gathering to the East” in China.
Highlights
Regional economy is regarded as a dynamic process of cross-regional growth and change [1]
The study shows that the development of multilocational enterprises and the agglomeration of their functional departments related to administration and control, research and development, and sales and production serve as an important microfoundation of evolution of regional spatial division of labor
Small-sized manufacturers maintain the spatial structure based on location, while large-sized ceramics manufacturers have evolved from the location-based spatial structure to the part–process spatial structure and to network grouping spatial structure
Summary
Regional economy is regarded as a dynamic process of cross-regional growth and change [1]. By 2015, the domestic investment value of the five central provinces mentioned above was 2.5 times that of foreign investment in China This phenomenon of industrial transfer, which began in the 2000s, has played a vital role in promoting economic growth in inland areas, adjusting economic structure in coastal areas, and reshaping the national competitive advantage of the People’s Republic of China [11,12]. We used the qualitative research method of semi-structured enterprise interviews to analyze ceramic manufacturing transfer between the PRD and its peripheral NPRD areas of Guangdong Province, and we try to answer several questions related to China’s industrial structure adjustment and regional development: To what extent does industrial agglomeration and diffusion factors in the NEG promote industrial transfer between. Sustainability 2020, 12, 189 the PRD and NPRD, and how do they affect the regional differences? Is there low value-added industry transfer in upgrading regional industrial structure? How does China’s industrial policies adapt to the level of industrial agglomeration?
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