Research On The Intensive Growth Of Urban Economy Based On Total Factor Productivity

With the vanishing trend of fast increase of urban economy in China, problems such as resource shortage, cost increment, structural imbalance, etc., have become more and more prominent. The future economy will operate with the new normal state characteristic of mid and high speed, optimized structure, new power and multiple challenges. Faced with the new macro-economic situation, urban economy growth must focus on how to break through the bottleneck of power decline, reconstruct the new dynamism and implement intensive growth, which have been paid more and more attention by both the theoretical fields and the practice levels.Based on existing researches of literatures, the dissertation puts the intensive growth of urban economy in the grand background of the space and time difference of total factor productivity, analyzes the time-evolving trend and spatial differential characteristics of regional difference of total factor productivity and economic growth, inspects the organization and operation modes of urban intensive economic growth, and then discusses the way urban economy growth model transitions.Through literature inspection, theoretical analysis and experimental verification, the study made by the dissertation includes the following aspects. (1) Based on a systematic elaboration of the content and measurement method of total factor productivity, the relation between total factor productivity and urban economy intensive growth was disclosed, which was followed by the construction of urban economy intensive growth model driven by total factor productivity, and then the features and reality meanings of the model was analyzed and explained. (2) Based on the analyses made on the changes of total factor productivity of 281 cities in China during 2003-2012, the time-evolving characteristics of total factor productivity and economic growth was disclosed in depth. (3) Based on the spatial dimensional analyses of total factor productivity and economic growth of the cities in China, the characteristics of spatial difference of total factor productivity and urban economic growth of Yangtze River Delta, Pearl River Delta, Beijing Tianjin and Hebei, Mid-south Liaoning and Central Plains Economic Zone were highly generalized, which sheds lights on the importance of the spatial organization of urban economy intensive growth. (4) Through experimental analysis, factors that have effects on the total factor productivity difference were determined. Then regression analysis methods of fixed effect, stochastic effect and mixed effects, as well as the Shapley Value Method were employed in the determination of the principal factors that have effects on the difference of total factor productivity of total country and the five great economic zones, from which the variety of the organization and operation of urban intensive economic growth within different regions. (5) Based on the review of the defects of current urban economy growth model, the driving power of urban intensive economy growth was analyzed, and then the organization and operation of urban intensive economic growth were explored by class. (6) The necessity and general way of urban economic transition were analyzed from three aspects:growth power, growth structure and growth process.From the above analyses and discussions, the dissertation arrives at the following conclusions. (1) The urban economic intensive growth is a dynamically balanced process of multi-target optimization. The dissertation constructed the urban economic intensive growth model driven by total factor productivity from the input and output of urban economy, which leads to the condition of maximum output. The result indicates that the urban intensive economic growth is a multi-target decision-making process via improving effects of different factors, breaking through the bottleneck of efficiency and thus realizing dynamic balance. (2) Urban intensive economic growths lack power, and there’s obvious difference between the potentials of regional intensive economy growth. Although the total factor productivity of China is improving as a whole, yet the improvement slows year by year. The horizontal effects of technical efficiency reduce the chasing effects of technical variations, which results in the instability and discontinuity of the urban intensive economic growth. Among regions the differences of intensive economic growth potential are evident. The eastern region is the region that has the most evident improvement of total factor productivity, and the gap between it and other regions is enlarging, whilst the gap between the central region and western region is decreasing, and the north-eastern region has become one that has the slowest improvement of total factor productivity. The improvement of the total factor productivity of Pearl River Delta is obviously better than other regions. The Central Plains Economic Zone has a fast improvement of total factor productivity. The improvement of the total factor productivity of Beijing, Tianjin and Hebei as well as the Long River Delta take a smooth look, and that of the Mid-south Liaoning is obvious lower than the average level of the whole country. In urban economic growth a route-dependence is shown, and outside factors like regional economic policy have an obvious effect on the improvement of urban intensive economic growth. (3) Regional economic growths have a spatial structure of "center-surrounding", and the spatial relation of intensive economic growth between cities is to be strengthened. The analysis of the spatial distribution of total factor productivity on a provincial level shows that the total factor productivity of China is characterized by spatial assemblage. In the south-east coastal regions, Yangtze River Basin, Round Bohai Area, the large-area assemblage of prominent efficiency-improved has formed. Provinces with efficiency prominently improved and those with efficiency averagely improved are stable in both time and region. Within the economic zone, whether single-center or multi-centers, all take a "center-surrounding" spatial structure of economic growth. However, such spatial structure is also characterized by differentiation. Analysis on the spatial dimensional of total factor productivity shows that the regional single-center city has a weak economic growth potential, and the relation between the central city and the surrounding cities is loose. There is also an imbalance between the cities of double-center within a region, and the stability of the spatial structure of economic growth of the region is not strong. (4) The economic growth of China mainly depends on the investment of government and agglomeration economy, and the industrial structure optimization as well as the research and development is the short-board of the power of urban intensive economic growth. The growth power is differenced in regional economic growth, and the driving-power short of multi-factor coordination has become the bottleneck that restrains the urban intensive economic growth. The application of regression analysis methods like mixed-effect, fixed-effect and stochastic-effect regression analysis show that the four factors, governmental technical investment, industrial structure, agglomeration economy and activities of research and development, take prominence both in total country and the five economic zones, which indicates that the four factors affect the continuous improvement of the total factor productivity of the cities within China. Industrial structure and research-and-development activities are proven to be the bottleneck in the improvement of urban intensive economic growth. Through the Shapley Value Method, it is shown that governmental technical investment, industrial structure, agglomeration economy and research-and-development activities are the principal factors that cause the TFP difference. (5) Governmental control, industrial structure optimization, intellectual enhancing and multiple driving are the main organization and functioning modes of urban intensive economic growth in China. The four modes are formed under certain constraining condition, however, due to the difference among resource endowment, economic factors, constitutional and policy factors and cultural factors, the selection of organization and functioning mode is various of intensive economic growth city by city. (6) Creation-driving, balanced development and quality enhancing are the common way in the transition of urban economy from extensive form to intensive form. In urban economic growth, the power source is shifting from factor-driving to creation-driving; the process is shifting from unbalanced to balanced development; the growth from quantity increasing to quality enhancement. The three aspects indicate the necessity and the general way of urban economic growth transition.The creative work done in the dissertation includes the following aspects. (1) The TFP-driving urban intensive economic growth model was constructed, and thus the complete theoretical analysis framework between the regional difference of TFP and urban intensive economic growth was formed, which provides the theoretical foundation for the transition of China’s urban economic growth from extensive mode to intensive mode. (2) Experiment analyses pointed out the spatial differentiation of TFP and urban economic growth, and analyzed the factors that affect the regional difference of TFP, which provides abundant data support for the selection of proper intensive economic growth mode for cities in China. (3) The organization and functioning mode of urban intensive economic growth in terms of TFP were generalized and proposed, which could provide references in the decision-making of the transition of urban economic growth under the background of new normal-state economy.The dissertation made exploratory research on the regional difference of TFP and urban intensive economic growth and drew some creative conclusions. Future study will be focused on further analysis of the variety of the organization modes of urban intensive economic growth, and the risk prevention and control of institutional creation, technical revolution and structure conversion that might occur in the transition of urban economy.