Research On The Economic Impact Of Free Trade Zones In China

The establishment of the Free Trade Zones(FTZs)is not only the core segment in China's reform and opening up strategy,but also an important measure to revitalize local economy by government.Based on the analysis of concept of China's FTZ,this paper analyzes the development experience of international standard FTZ,the analysis found that: the industrial functions of FTZ have been upgraded from single industry of international trade to multi-industries of high-tech industry,service industry,and international trade;The standard international FTZs are generally supervised and operated separately,the government department is responsible for supervising the link between the FTZ and the outlying areas,the authorizing agency is responsible for the specific operations in FTZ,and the core of FTZ internal management is improve trade facilitation;The international standard FTZs have adopted information management methods to reduce manual intervention and greatly improve the operational efficiency.This paper theoretical analyzes the spatial agglomeration effect,FDI attractive effect,trade promotion effect,industrial structure upgrading effect,and economic growth effect of FTZs by the usage of Unbalanced Growth Theory,Growth Pole Theory,Pole-Axis Development Theory,and “Core-Periphery” Theory,and the provincial panel data is applied to the empirical analysis.The study found:First,the spatial distribution of China's FTZs is classic "center-periphery" pattern of transition from eastern to western.The empirical analysis on spatial agglomeration effect of FTZs found that,Economic scale and the level of economic development are important factors affecting the spatial agglomeration of FTZs.The development of export-oriented economy is conducive to the spatial agglomeration of FTZs.Reducing transportation cost and labor cost are conducive to the spatial agglomeration of FTZs.Financial decentralization has no significant effect on the spatial agglomeration of FTZs,and the regional economic strategy is conducive to the spatial agglomeration of FTZs.Further analysis of the spatial agglomeration effects of bonded zones(BZs)and export processing zones(EPZs)found that,the spatial agglomeration of BZs tend to developed areas,while EPZs tend to underdeveloped areas.Reducing transportation cost and labor cost have positive effect on the spatial agglomeration of EPZs,but have no significant effect on BZs.The regional economic strategy have positive impact on the spatial agglomeration of the EPZs,but have no significant effect on BZs.Second,the FDI attractive effects of China's FTZs are significant,and increase over time.The FDI attractive effect of FTZs have obvious scale effect.The FDI attractive effect of BZs are significant.The FDI attractive effect of EPZs are significant,and mainly reflected on the eastern.the FDI attractive effects of BZs and EPZs have no obvious interaction.Further analysis of the FDI quality upgrading effect of FTZs shows that,the FDI quality upgrading effect of FTZs are significant,and mainly reflected on the eastern.The FDI quality upgrading effects of FTZs change over time follow inverse U-shaped,but decrease in the eastern.The FDI quality upgrading effect of BZs are not significant.EPZs are not conducive to improve the FDI quality,only in the central and western.the FDI quality upgrading effect of BZs and EPZs is obviously alternative.Thirdly,the trade promotion effects of China's FTZs are significant and increase over time,mainly reflected on export trade.In the eastern,the export and import trade promotion effects of FTZs are significant and increasing over time;In the central and western,FTZs have significant export trade promotion effects and increasing over time.The scale advantage strengthens the export trade promotion effect of FTZs,and the location advantages reinforced the import trade promotion effect.To further analysis the trade promotion effects of different types of FTZ,it is found that,the trade promotion effects of BZs and EPZs are significant,and the import trade promotion effects of BZs and EPZs is synergistic.In the eastern,the trade promotion effects of BZs are significant,the trade promotion effects of EPZs are significant,mainly reflected on export,the synergy of the trade promotion effects of BZs and EPZs is significant,mainly reflected on export.In the central and western,the trade promotion effect of BZs are not significant,and the trade effect of EPZs are obvious,mainly reflected on import,the synergy of the trade promotion effects of BZs and EPZs is significant,mainly reflected on import.Fourthly,the industrial structure rationalization effects of China's FTZs are significant and change over time follow inverse U-shaped.In the eastern,the industrial structure rationalization effects of FTZs are significant and increase over time.In the central and western,the industrial structure optimization effects of FTZs are significant and decrease over time.The policy advantage has strengthened the industrial structure optimization effects of FTZs.Further analysis of the industrial structure upgrading effect of different type FTZ found that,the industrial structure upgrading effect of BZs and EPZs are mainly manifested in the central and western;the industrial structure upgrade effects BZs are not significant;the EPZs restrained the industrial structure upgrading,the interaction between BZs and EPZs is synergic to industrial structure rationalization,and alternative to industrial structure optimization.Fifthly,the economic growth effects of China's FTZs are significant and change over time fellow inverted U-shaped.In the eastern,FTZs promoted regional economic growth,and change over time fellow inverted U-shaped.In the central and western,FTZs restrained regional economic growth,and change over time fellow inverted U-shaped.The economic growth effects of FTZs are scale marginal diminishing,the regional and policy advantages strengthen the economic growth effects of FTZs.The analysis of the economic growth effects of different type FTZ shows that,the economic growth effects of BZs are significant,but the economic growth effects of EPZs are not significant,and there is no obvious interaction between the two.In the eastern,BZs restrained the economy growth,and the economic growth effects of EPZs are not significant,there is no obvious interaction between the two.In the central and western,the economic growth effects of BZs are insignificant,but the economic growth effects of EPZs are significant,there is a obvious synergy between the two.Further analysis of the impact of FTZs on economic convergence shows that,the impact of FTZs on the rate of China's economic convergence are insignificant.In the eastern,FTZs reduced the speed of economic convergence,but BZs are conducive to economic convergence.