Abstract
The green economy has gained worldwide attention, especially in the urban agglomerations where population and economic activities are highly concentrated. However, what kind of urban agglomeration spatial structure is more conducive to promoting the green economy? No clear conclusions have been made. To bridge this gap, by employing the data of 16 urban agglomerations in China in 2003-2017 and a comprehensive analytic framework including dynamic panel threshold model, this paper studies the impact of urban agglomeration spatial structure on the green economy and the three subsystems of green economy to shed light on which kind of urban agglomeration spatial structure better drives the green economy. The main findings are shown below: (1) urban agglomeration spatial structural evolution is closely related to green economy, while in the research period, most urban agglomerations are not located in the optimal range of the spatial structure that drives the green economy. (2) Towards polycentric spatial structure is contributive to green economic growth; however, the excessively polycentric could not benefit green economy. (3) The evolution of urban agglomeration spatial structure exerts heterogeneous impacts on the three subsystems when green economy is decomposed into economic subsystem, resources subsystem, and environmental subsystem. Towards polycentric is more conducive to the improvement of economic subsystem and resource subsystem, while the tendency to monocentric drives the environmental subsystem. (4) Lastly, the conclusions enlighten the urban agglomeration development planning and spatial mode for approaching a better performance in green economy.
Highlights
To fulfill the above contribution in this study, we investigate the following research questions: Is there evidence of spatial structure’s influence on green economy in the urban agglomerations over the sample period? If so, further, we want to know when the green economy is subdivided into three different subsystems, whether the impacts on three subsystems show heterogeneities? after the threshold model is conducted, what new findings can we get? Could the empirical findings confirm the superiority of the threshold model compared to the linear model?
Understanding whether and how urban agglomeration spatial structure affect green economy is of great importance for exploring the growth effects of urban agglomeration
Exploring such issues could reveal whether urban agglomeration achieve economic growth, resources saving and environmental protection simultaneously? as of theoretical and empirical evidence regarding to this has not received strong supports
Summary
Whether spatial structure, especially polycentric, can truly improve regional competitiveness, development, still lack empirical evidence This is a research topic worth discussing, because different cities may adopt completely inconsistent or differentiated strategies when facing the economic and environmental problems. The development of urban agglomerations and the evolution of their spatial structure may have different effects on the three dimensions of economy, resources, and environment Such guess requires an effective empirical evidence, through which how urban agglomeration spatial structure affects green economy can be clearly shown. We divide the green economy into three subsystems and show how the urban agglomeration spatial structure affects them This helps to have a clearer picture of whether urban agglomeration can achieve economic growth, resource conservation and environmental protection together. The specific research framework of this paper is shown in a graphical way (Fig. 1)
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