| Since 1980,the Chinese government has continuously attached great importance to optimize the city size distribution by formulating and implementing urban development policy,which is to strictly control large cities,reasonably develop medium-size and small cities,and actively develop small towns.However,from the perspective of policy implementation effect,the scientific and reasonable city size distribution has not yet been formed,meanwhile the so-called polarization trend has occurred.Specifically,big cities,especially those large cities expanded quickly,and small cities and small towns shrunk relatively.The phenomenon is due to the market polarization effect,government regulation failure,the wills of population migration,the distortions of development concept,etc.Nevertheless,one factor that must never be ignored is the local government competition.Given that the local government competition is a key factor in explaining the historical characteristics of the growth of China’s city size,the environmental regulation under the local government competition is an important variable to predict the evolution trend of China’s city size distribution.Some scholars have pointed out that urban environmental problems are increasingly becoming the most important determinants of urbanization speed and the size of large cities.It is witnessed that the drive effect of pollution emissions on the local population migration has emerged in China’s economically developed coastal cities and inland central cities.The theoretical analysis has found that the effective environmental regulation could control pollution emissions,improve the environmental quality,and influence the population migration and re-location of enterprises.This helps reshape the economic geography configuration.Unfortunately,the existing research literatures have not explained and predicted China’s city size distribution from the perspectives of local government competition and environmental regulation.This dissertation aims to make up for the lack of existing research.The dissertation first raises the importance of the topic of local government competition,environmental regulation and city size distribution,and then summarizes the research literature about city size distribution and elaborates the relevant theoretical basis.Next,the main body of this dissertation begins with the systematical analysis on the temporal and spatial evolution characteristics and trends of China’s city size distribution.Afterwards,the dissertation analyzes the effect of the inter-local-governmental financial competition on the growth of city size,and examines the impact of tax competition and expenditure competition on the growth of China’s city size,so as to provide theoretical basis and empirical experience for the follow-up studies.Furthermore,the actual impact of environmental regulation on city size distribution is analyzed by regarding the environmental regulation competition as a form of local government competition,and comparisons are made between analysis based on the consideration of environmental regulation competition and those without.Through the above analysis,this dissertation found that:(1)China’s city size structure demonstrates a typical "pyramid" pattern.The number of small cities is too large,and the number of medium cities is too small.Thus,the size gap between cities is insufficient,and the city size distribution still need to be further optimized.The fourth chapter of this dissertation shows that,at the national level,the scale structure of China’s cities presents a typical "pyramid" pattern,the number of medium cities is too small,the number of small cities is too large,and the size gap is too small.China’s city size distribution is getting more concentrated by the influence of administrative zoning changes and other factors.At the regional level,the size gap among cities within the eastern,central,western and northeastern region is too small,and the relative advantages of the primate cities in the eastern,western and northeastern regions are not prominent.At the provincial level,the size gap among cities within most provinces is too small,with exceptions that in several provinces,the primate city’s size far surpasses the others—the urban system presents the characteristic of "the dominance of one city".(2)Financial competition among local governments is an important factor to promote the growth of China’s city size.In chapter 3,the theoretical model and numerical simulation of relationship between tax competition and city size distribution show that there is an optimal tax rate for mobile factors in the city,and the tax rate rises with the increase of residents’ preference for public goods.Any deviation from the optimal tax rate will lead to loss of urban residents’ welfare,and thus affect the growth of city size.In the tax competition between two cities of the same initial conditions,the city whose tax rate is closer to the optimal tax rate will prevail in the process of population agglomeration.The higher degree of deviation of the nearby cities from the optimal tax rate will bring greater benefits to the city.The logical deduction in chapter 5 proposes that the net effects of the macro tax burden and fiscal expenditure on the growth of city size are of uncertainty,but tax competition and expenditure competition among local governments are favorable to the growth of city size.The empirical analysis in chapter 5 shows that the direct effect of the macro tax burden and fiscal expenditure on the growth of city size is not significant,and the spillover effect is significant and positive during 2000-2010.This is due to the constraint effect of urban development policy,fiscal structure and other factors.Specifically,the macro tax burden and the financial expenditure of the neighboring cities are beneficial to the growth of the city’s size.(3)The impact of environmental regulation on China’s city size distribution can not be ignored.In chapter 6,theoretical model and numerical simulation found that if the strict environmental regulation can effectively improve the environmental quality,it will be more conducive to the growth of large cities,and thus promote the concentration of city size distribution.Residents’ preference in environmental quality is a decentralized force for city size distribution—the influence is weakened with the increase of environmental regulation intensity.Regardless of the degree of environmental regulation and environmental preference,the degree of freedom of trade is a decentralized force of city size distribution.The empirical analysis without consideration of local government competition in chapter 6 shows that,environmental regulation has raised the urban primacy index of China’s urban system from 1993 to 2012,but has not promoted the concentration of China’s city size distribution.On the contrary,environmental regulation has promoted the decentralization of China’s city size distribution,due to the actual effect of environmental regulation.The empirical analysis in chapter 7 takes into account the environmental regulation competition among local governments,and the result also confirms that environmental regulation does promote the decentralization of China’s city size distribution from 2006 to 2015.(4)"Race to the top" in environmental regulation promote the concentration of China’s city size distribution.In Chapter 7,the theoretical model and numerical simulation analysis show that,in the cases of low environmental preference,the inherent motivation of small cities to release the environmental regulation is stronger than that of big cities.However,with the improvement of the residents’ environmental preference,the impetus in the implementation of strict environmental regulation by large cities and small cities will be enhanced."Race to the bottom" in environmental regulation is more favorable to small cities,and thus it will promote the decentralization of city size distribution.“"Race to the top" in environmental regulation is more adverse to small cities,and will promote the centralization of city size distribution.The empirical results show that "Race to the top" in local governments’ environmental regulation has promoted the concentration of China’s city size distribution from 2006 to 2015.According to the above conclusions,this dissertation puts forward five policy suggestions:First,we should take the reasonable development of the primaty city as the primary task of optimizing China’s city size distribution.Second,we must focus on accelerat:ing the development of small and medium cities.Third,we should implement environmental regulation according to local-level and city-level conditions,and realize dual objectives of environmental quality improvement and optimization of city size distribution.Fourth,we should strictly regulate horizontal financial competition behavior among local governments,making them play the leading role in the optimization of China’s city size distribution.Fifth,we must improve the evaluation system of green development performance and the related supporting measures,in order to guide the change of local government environmental regulation competition from the "race to the bottom " to "race to the top". |
