Research On The Influence Of Urban Agglomeration Spatial Structure On Regional Income Gap

We will promote coordinated development among regions,thoroughly implement the strategy of coordinated development among regions,the strategy of major regional development,the strategy of functional zones,and the strategy of new urbanization,improve the distribution of major productive forces,and build a regional economic layout and territorial space system that complement each other’s strengths and provide high-quality development.We will promote a new type of people-centered urbanization and speed up the urbanization of rural residents.We will build a coordinated development pattern for large,medium and small cities relying on city clusters and metropolitan areas,and promote urbanization with county towns as an important carrier.It can be seen that our country’s overall planning of promoting regional coordinated development has put forward corresponding requirements for the further construction of urban agglomerations in the next period of time.There is no doubt that narrowing the income gap between regions is the inherent requirement of constructing the coordinated development pattern in the next stage.The development strategy of urban agglomeration,as one of the main goals of new-type urbanization construction,should give consideration to fairness in the process of pursuing efficiency and solve the income gap problem within urban agglomeration.At present,few studies have involved the impact of the spatial structure of urban agglomerations on the regional income gap.In this context,this paper discusses this issue theoretically and empirically in order to obtain valuable findings.Reasonable arrangement of urban agglomeration distribution system to promote the coordinated development of regional economy is the necessary meaning of common prosperity.From the perspective of urban agglomeration,this paper uses panel data of prefecture-level cities from 2003 to 2018.Firstly,based on the factors of scale,location and accessibility pointed out in the existing literature,the multi-centrality index of urban agglomeration was constructed,and then the multi-centrality panel data of 21 major urban agglomerations in China was calculated.Secondly,on the basis of the existing income gap indicators,this paper quantitatively calculates the income gap indicators of urban agglomerations,and generates panel data to measure the income gap of 21 urban agglomerations,including Theil index,Gini coefficient,etc.Finally,this paper uses the fixed effect model to explore the impact of the multi-center development model on the reduction of regional income gap,and conducts multiple robustness tests.On this basis,the heterogeneity analysis is further carried out,and the possible mechanism of the influence is empirically explored.The findings are as follows:(1)At the level of urban agglomeration,the multi-center spatial development model can indeed narrow the regional income gap.Specifically,every 1 percentage point increase in the multi-center index of urban agglomeration reduces the internal income gap by 0.34 percentage points.The robustness of this conclusion is confirmed by multiple index replacement methods and instrumental variables.(2)The above-mentioned reduction effect mainly relies on the positive spillover effects of large regional cities emphasized in agglomeration economics: small and mediumsized cities can "borrow" the spillover of agglomeration economy from neighboring metropolises as well as diversified and relatively high-end urban functions.Specifically,the multi-center urban agglomeration development strategy promotes the improvement of total factor productivity in low-income areas.(3)Urban areas that are not municipal districts benefit a lot from the reduction of income gap,that is,one of the main beneficiaries of the reduction of income gap may be residents of non-municipal districts.(4)The discussion on heterogeneity shows that economic integration is beneficial to the coordinated development of regional economy.Comparatively speaking,cultural integration and regional polycentric strategy show certain differences in policy effects.The research results of this paper not only bring important enlightenment for the implementation of urban agglomeration strategy,but also provide some empirical basis for reducing the regional income gap.Based on the above research conclusions,this paper believes that the construction of multi-center urban agglomeration spatial structure should be continuously promoted,highquality core cities should be developed,and the urban industrial structure within the region should complement each other.Small and medium-sized cities should actively coordinate hardware and software links and information sharing between themselves and other cities.Based on their comparative advantages,they should carry out selective industrial structure iterative upgrading and constantly improve their core advantages.In addition,multicultural construction should be carried out within the city cluster,continuous development of compulsory education and general education should be promoted,cultural inclusiveness should be enhanced,and multi-center policies should be promoted to promote coordinated economic development to a greater extent.