Redai dili (Dec 2022)
Producer Services and Urban Economic Resilience in China
Abstract
With the increasing complexity and uncertainty of regional economies, economic resilience has become a hot research topic in economic geography in recent years. Industrial structure is considered the most important factor in explaining differences in regional economic resilience. However, they tend to focus on the industrial sector without paying adequate attention to producer services, which have played an increasingly important role in the economy. Theoretically, producer services can deepen the division of labor and provide specialized services, reduce transaction costs and improve efficiency, promote knowledge and technology spillover effects to resist crises, create new paths through related diversification, and spread the risk of external shocks through unrelated diversification. This study attempted to probe into the relationship between producer services and economic resilience. According to China's GDP growth, the period from 2007 to 2012 was the resistance period and the period from 2012 to 2017 was the adjustment period. In a period of resistance, economic resilience refers to economic resistance, and in a period of adjustment, resilience refers to economic recoverability. Based on an analysis of 285 cities at and above the prefectural level in China in the "post-crisis" era using a multiple mediation effect model, three main findings can be drawn. First, producer services have not only directly enhanced the economic resilience of cities by enlarging the unrelated variety of the industrial structure but also indirectly enhanced urban economic resistance and recoverability by increasing the related variety of urban industrial structures to induce technological innovation. Second, the degree of separation between producer services and the manufacturing industry in China remains low, and the mediating effect of producer services on economic resilience through deepening specialization and reducing transaction costs is not significant at present. Third, the impact of producer services on urban economic resistance and recoverability differs among eastern, central, and western cities owing to differences in the development level of producer services and economic structure. The direct and indirect impacts of producer services in the eastern cities are more prominent. The impact in central cities is likely to be indirect, mainly through the mediation effect of scientific and technological innovation. The effect of producer services on economic resilience in western cities is not significant. Fourth, among the four subgroups of producer services, the direct and indirect impacts of information transmission, software, and information technology services are the most significant. Owing to their relatively close relationship with low-tech industries, the impact of business services on economic resilience is weaker than that of other producer service sectors. This study is a useful supplement to the existing studies on economic resilience which tends to be "industry-oriented".
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