Manufacturing Location Distribution Evolution: Based On The Analysis Of The 1998-2008 Micro-enterprise Data

Based on China's lately-decrypted micro-scale industrial enterprise database from 1998 to 2007, this paper gives a comprehensive, in-depth description of the geographical distribution of manufacturing with multi-indicators like industrial concentration ratio, Gini coefficient and combinations of multi-regional levels and multi-industrial levels. Although the manufacturing sector's gathering tendency reversed in 2004 or so, industrial agglomeration characteristics in coastal areas were still evident. In the county level, manufacturing sectors boast high levels of concentration, while specialization trend of county-level economies is quite obvious. Comparison the conclusion in this paper with findings in similar research in the county level and explanation of differences between the results, this paper provides a unified conclusion on the evolution of the manufacturing location. In addition, based on these observations, this paper explains the relationship between manufacturing distribution and the income gap between regions, and that between manufacturing distribution and land scarcity in coastal areas. Finally, new insights are provided in this paper concerning the elimination of manufacturing overcapacity at this stage.