Industrial agglomeration, spatial structure and economic growth: Evidence from urban cluster in China

Abstract

The industrial agglomeration and spatial structure characteristics play important roles in the economic development and improvement of competitiveness for urban cluster. The article constructs a C-D model using panel data of 130 cities in 13 urban clusters in China from 2006 to 2015, then constructs regression equations of the relationship between industrial agglomeration, spatial structure and economic growth through fixed-effects regression models, and finally analyzes the influence of industrial agglomeration and spatial structure on economic growth of urban clusters. The research results indicate that the economic structure of urban clusters is affected by both the level of industrial agglomeration and spatial structure of urban clusters. The higher the level of industrial agglomeration, the more obvious the economic effect of urban clusters. From the perspective of the spatial structure of urban clusters, the impact of monocentric spatial structure of urban clusters on economic growth shows a positive correlation. Human capital, physical capital, economic openness and resident population have significant positive effects on the economic growth of urban clusters, while transportation infrastructure is not significant. At this moment, we should further promote the industrial agglomeration, and continuously optimize the internal spatial structure of urban clusters with the linkage mechanism of land and household registration to improve the comprehensive competitiveness of urban clusters.