Spatial Evolution And Economic Performance Of City Clusters In China From Morphologically Mono-and Polycentric Perspective

City clusters is a geographic phenomenon worldwide with the increasingly intense social and economic interactions among cities.In the newest Chinese regional development policy,city clusters are focused on as spatial carriers of regional economic development.However,the related literature deals mainly with the characteristics description and the concept definition of city clusters,limited is known about their spatial evolution,influencing factors and economic performance e.g.from morphologically mono-and polycentric perspective.Using panel data model,this paper examines the evolution,influencing factors and economic performance of spatial structure of city clusters in China,attempting to provide Chinese evidence for the study on city clusters,as well as to provide academic basis for regional development policy in China.The results show:Generally,a polycentric trend of city clusters' spatial structure can be observed in China since the 1980s;With spatial structure as dependent variable,the increasingly polycentric spatial evolution of city clusters are significantly associated with the increase of GDP per capita and the increase of population size.With GDP per capita as dependent variable,better economic performance can be attributed to the increased polycentricity of city clusters.Thus,policy should comply with the polycentric trend,promoting integration of policy and transportation infrastructure within city clusters,to strengthen exchanges of production factors and improve economic performance.For the few city clusters still in monocentric phase,policy guidance should not urge them into the polycentric transformation prematurely.