Does China’s green economic recovery generate a spatial convergence trend: an explanation using agglomeration effects and fiscal instruments

Abstract

China’s urbanization process has entered a period of rapid development, and cities have become key to driving regional economic development. This paper uses data from 286 cities in China in the period 2005–2018 to construct an urban economic growth quality index system and examine the influence of spatial factors on the convergence trend of China’s urban economic growth quality. It is found that there is a β absolute convergence trend of economic growth quality in Chinese cities across the whole country. After controlling for the initial conditions of individual economies, spatial factors strengthen the spatial convergence trend of urban economic growth quality and significantly increase the corresponding convergence rate. Among the areas studied, the western region has the fastest convergence rate, followed by the central and eastern regions, and the convergence rates of both the central and western regions are higher than the national average. Agglomeration economies and fiscal policy tools are important for the promotion of the urban economic growth quality. The agglomeration of productive service industries significantly improves the spatial convergence rate of urban economic growth quality. This effect is mainly due to the spatial spillover of industrial agglomeration. The expansion of government fiscal expenditure also contributes to the spatial convergence trend of urban economic growth quality. Local economic growth quality is also affected by government fiscal expenditure in neighboring cities.

Role of the e-exhibition industry in the green growth of businesses and recovery

“…The major findings confirmed that investment can bring sufficient capital to green project leading to sustainable activities of China’s heavy-polluting industries. Kong et al ( 2022 ) discovered the direct positive impact of fiscal instruments on efficient green economic recovery of China. In a fresh study, Naseer et al ( 2022 ) employed the Analytical Hierarchical process (AHP) to evaluate aspects of green economic efficiency in China.…”

How does the digital economy affect the development of the green economy? Evidence from Chinese cities

“…Due to the spatial spillover effects facilitated by the digital economy, the efficiency gap in green economy development among Chinese provinces is gradually narrowing. This convergence demonstrates “Club Convergence” characteristics, exhibiting positive spatial correlation and a strong degree of spillover [ 43 ]. The flow of production factors, resource sharing, and capital enabled by the digital economy promotes the spatial spillover of green technologies between regions, facilitating the sharing and development of green technological innovation among different areas.…”

Strategies for the sustainable development of China in the post‐epidemic era

“…Furthermore, we briefly survey and summarize previous research related to China's economic recovery, which has a very high reference significance for the topic of this paper. More specifically, some scholars have explored the role of government in the process of China's economic recovery (Kong et al, 2022; Yang et al, 2021), while other researchers have targeted what China's economic recovery could bring to the world (Soomro et al, 2021; Wang & Zhang, 2021). Other related contents about economic recoveries, such as recovery policies and the recovery of specific provinces, are also the focus of existing scholars' research (Fu et al, 2020; Jiang et al, 2021; Wang, Wang, & Chang, 2022; Wang, Zhang, et al, 2022; Yang et al, 2020; Zhang & Zheng, 2020).…”