Research On The Relationship Between The Network Structure Of Urban Agglomeration And Economic Convergence

At present,China is in the mid-stage of the development of industrialization and urbanization.With the rapid economic growth,the economic structure,industrial structure,regional structure,and urban structure all face tremendous changes.Judging from the laws and experience of economic growth in developed countries,before the per capita income reaches 1,000 US dollars,economic activities will show obvious spatial agglomeration and concentration characteristics.According to the external statistics of the “National Population Development Plan(2016-2030)” issued by the State Council,by 2030,China's population will reach 1.45 billion,and the urbanization rate of permanent residents in China will reach70%,which will lead to spatial aggregation of factors.Concentration will promote the gradual formation of various types of urban areas with urban groups as the mainstay.With the development of information and transportation technology,the forms of spatial connections have increased,and the time and distance of connections have become shorter and shorter,which has led to a lower and lower cost of links between cities within urban agglomerations,and division of labor and cooperation have penetrated into various regions of the city.As economic activities increasingly break the spatial scope of a single city,the influence and interaction between cities has become close and frequent,and network relations have become the driving force for the development of the city.Looking at the spatial organization patterns of various urban agglomerations in the world,there are mainly two types,ie,“scaleless” and“small-world” forms.The “scaleless” form has the feature of “priority connection”,and resources will flow more to major cities,such as the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei urban agglomeration in China,and the Wuhan urban agglomeration;the “small-world” form emphasizes the horizontal development between cities.Although there will be differences among regions,there will be no polarization,such as the Randstad region in the Netherlands and the Yangtze River Delta city group in China.There must be differences in the economic growth between cities and regions.Whether or not their development tends to converge is one of the hot issues that economists are studying today.The widening regional economic level means that the poorer the poor,the rich are getting richer,and the polarization of society is severe.This not only hinders the rapideconomic development,but also is not conducive to social harmony and stability.Therefore,exploring the influence of urban agglomeration spatial organization on economic convergence and dispersion will help provide theoretical support for the construction of regional urban systems,promote the rapid development of cities and regions,and provide governments with practical,targeted and focused cities.Systematic construction reference suggestion,advance the urban system to the advanced stage with goals and steps.The existing literature studies the characteristics of urban agglomerations from the perspective of regional economics and complex networks.However,few literatures comprehensively consider the characteristics of urban agglomerations and the econometric models.Therefore,this paper constructs the evaluation index of the spatial economic network from a variety of perspectives,such as node relationships and network relations indicators,and uses this index to measure the economic links between the Yangtze River Delta City Cluster,Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei urban agglomeration,and the Pearl River Delta City Cluster.The spatial econometric model measures the economic convergence of urban agglomerations,and uses a semi-parametric model to quantitatively analyze the effects of network structure and its effects on the urban cluster economic convergence and dispersion.The main conclusions of this paper are:(1)From 2002 to 2013,the inner cities of the three major urban agglomerations became more closely linked,and the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei urban agglomeration showed an unscaled form,which was a dual-core model;the Yangtze River Delta agglomeration and the Pearl River Delta agglomeration were relatively Balanced,showing a small world form.(2)There is a convergence of condition ? in the urban agglomeration of the Yangtze River Delta.Expanding the population density will promote the overall economy of the urban agglomeration.Although the spatial spillover effect of the region adjacent to the Yangtze River Delta region and the spatial effects of the error terms between different regional units are significant,the spatial Dubin model considering spatial interaction between economic activity and explanatory variables in the adjacent regions is more suitable for explaining the Yangtze River Delta regional economy.Increased beta convergence.(3)With the increase of real GDP,the city's first degree has declined.This shows that with the continuous development of the economy,the spatial structure of urban agglomerations is developing towards the small world,and it is increasingly balanced ratherthan polarized.However,it is worth pointing out that in the process of economic development,due to the existence of agglomeration economies,at some stage of the development of urban agglomerations,there may be "unscaled" features,that is,a siphon effect.Then,due to the uneconomical agglomeration and the reasonable guidance of the government,the urban agglomerations will still evolve towards multiple centers.