Industrial Agglomeration, IFDI and Economic Growth in Western China

Abstract

Both industrial agglomeration and inward foreign direct investment (IFDI) are drivers of China’s economic development. However, their distributions are unbalanced. Both are large in eastern regions, similar to the distribution of the GDP in China. It indicates there may be a relationship between them. Based on it, the paper selects fixed effects model to analyse the relationships among GDP, IFDI and the industrial agglomeration in China regarding different regions and time horizons, and finds that on the whole, the industrial agglomeration and IFDI do promote the regional economic growth stably during different periods, while both are much stronger in the western regions and central regions. The paper also finds the coefficient of their interaction item is significantly negative, which implies the transmission mechanism between IFDI and industry agglomeration is inefficient. To promote the balanced economy development of different regions, the paper suggests that China should improve the quantity and quality of industrial agglomeration and the IFDI to increase the coordinated development of both in different regions.