The Effect of Urban Services Development on Regional Economic Growth in China ——Based on Provincial Panel Data Analysis

Abstract

The indicator of urban success is the success of its urban services. Although much research on services have been made, there is major gap with regard to the regional services, especially on urban services within a country. As the Chinese government intends to accelerate the development of urban services and regional economy in the present Twelfth Five-Year Plan 2011-2015, the main purpose of this paper is to investigate the effect of urban services development on regional growth. By using panel data of 30 provinces in China from 2001-2011 and through GLS estimation of the ran-dom effect panel data model, it is found that the growth of urban services performed rather well in promoting regional economic growth of all of the three regions in China. But the promoting role of urban services on regional economic growth in this three regions were different among which, the role of urban services in eastern region were strongest , followed by central region and weakest in Western region.