“Takeover” and “Activation” Effects of National Strategies for Industrial Relocation—Based on the Perspective of Marketisation of Land Elements

Abstract

National Industrial Relocation Demonstration Zones (NIRDZs) are essential platforms for promoting regional economic restructuring and optimising inter-regional economic relations. Based on panel data of 287 prefecture-level cities in China and over 200,000 industrial land transactions from 2007–2019, this study conducts an empirical test using multi-temporal DID, propensity score matching, and instrumental variable methods to examine the relationship between NIRDZs and the marketisation of industrial land elements. The results show that the establishment of NIRDZs has a significant inhibitory effect on the market allocation of industrial land elements, and the conclusion still holds after a series of robustness tests. Further exploration reveals that the inhibiting effect of NIRDZs on the marketization of industrial land factors is the result of the combined effect of the takeover effect and activation effect of policies. The takeover effect of “promising government” has “low-end industry lock”, which inhibits the development of factor marketisation; the activation effect can stimulate the inner life of “effective market”, which can promote the marketisation of factors market-oriented allocation. The activation effect is to promote the market-based allocation of urban industrial land by activating three aspects: the level of market environment, the level of market operation, and the level of market access in the pilot cities. The analysis of the regulation effect shows that there is a vertical financial asymmetry and a vertical fiscal asymmetry in the inhibiting effect of NIRDZs on the market-oriented allocation of industrial land. Different levels of urban economic development also bring about different policy effects. This study broadens the understanding of heterogeneous development thinking and market-based management structures for industrial land elements in NIRDZs.