Adjustment Of Administrative Divisions And Economic Growth Of Small And Medium-sized Cities

As early as the Qin Dynasty,the division of administrative regions appeared in China.In the Yuan Dynasty,the provincial system was established,which provided a rich reference for the setting of provincial regionalization.During the period of the Republic of China,the town system was established,which greatly promoted the construction.Trying to find a reasonable and efficient way of administrative division.The first stage is from the founding of New China to the period of reform and opening up.In this stage,the adjustment of administrative divisions is mainly to consolidate the new political power and restore the national economy.The second stage is the reform and opening up till now.In order to explore the relationship between the adjustment of administrative divisions and the economic growth of small and medium-sized cities,this paper selects the policy of deserting counties and setting up districts,which has a typical significance,for research.Through the analysis of the history of administrative division adjustment and the characteristics of time and space to explore the development of China’s division adjustment.Then,the differential method was used for empirical test,and the heterogeneity of regional and administrative levels was analyzed.Then,some robustness tests were carried out,including parallel trend test,placebo test,and regression using PSM-DID method.Finally,the variables of industrial structure optimization and upgrading are introduced to analyze the influence of county removal and district establishment on industrial structure,so as to find the path of county removal and district establishment to promote regional economic growth.Through a series of analysis,the main conclusions are as follows:(1)Disassembling counties into districts can significantly promote the growth of local economy.Based on the method of multi-phase differential analysis,this paper empirically tests the net effect of county relocation on economic growth.The empirical results show that when per capita GDP and GDP are taken as the explained variables,the estimated coefficients of the dummy variable,the policy of setting up counties and districts,are significantly positive,indicating that the implementation of the policy of setting up counties and districts has a significant promoting effect on economic growth.(2)The influence of county removal and district establishment on economic growth has significant regional heterogeneity and regional administrative level heterogeneity.Through the empirical test of the eastern and the central and western regions of China,the results show that the economic growth of the central and western regions of China is significantly promoted by the removal of counties and the establishment of districts,while the influence on the eastern regions is not significant.It proves that there is regional heterogeneity in the influence of county removal and district establishment on China’s economic growth.In addition,through the empirical test of China’s municipalities and non-municipalities,the results show that the removal of counties to set up districts has a significant promoting effect on the economic growth of China’s municipalities,while the effect on nonmunicipalities is not significant.It proves that there is administrative level heterogeneity in the influence of county removal and district establishment on China’s economic growth.(3)The removal of counties and the establishment of districts has not had a significant positive impact on the "quality" and "quantity" of industrial structure.From the perspective of the "quantity" of industrial structure,the empirical test results are not significant,which proves that the removal of counties and the establishment of districts did not promote the sequential evolution of regional economy from the primary industry to the second and third industries.From the "quality" of the industrial structure,the coefficient of the empirical results is significantly negative,which proves that the "quality" of the industrial structure has a significant inhibiting effect on the removal of counties and the establishment of districts,that is,the removal of counties and the establishment of districts has not promoted the development of the industrial structure to the direction of economic service.Finally,in order to promote the effect of the policy to promote economic growth,combined with the actual situation and the conclusions of this paper,this paper puts forward reasonable suggestions from several aspects,including the standard of the removal of counties and the establishment of districts,the heterogeneity of regional development and the construction of industrial structure.