Sustainable Development of the Economic Circle around Beijing: A View of Regional Economic Disparity

Abstract

The economic circle around Beijing is a very important area that supports the development of Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region in China. The economic growths of the economic circle around Beijing are deeply affected by the regional economic disparity. Besides the resources and environment problems, economic factors may be more prominent of regional sustainability. The objective of this paper is: (1) To find out what caused the regional economic disparity of Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region; and (2) to assess the economic sustainable development status of the cities around Beijing, and give suggestions to narrow the regional disparity from the economic growth view. We used an assessment method based on the economic sustainable index system—the order relation method named G1 method, revised by standard deviation. The results showed that the fundamental reason for the differences lies in the disparity in production efficiency. The disparity in the regional economy increases the flow of talent to Beijing and Tianjin, so the labor productivity of Hebei Province will not improve. Thus, the economic gap among Hebei, Beijing, and Tianjin will continue to grow. This negative feedback will further exacerbate the economic growth problem. In terms of narrowing regional disparity, some implications are highlighted. Rational industrial structure, a high level of development in the manufacturing industry, and a high proportion of strategic emerging industries are important for the cities around Beijing to achieve high-level industry transfer, and the technological progress needed to promote economic growth.

Self-Deprecation or Self-Sufficient? Discrimination and Income Aspirations in Urban Labour Market Sustainable Development

“…However, several economically underdeveloped areas are confronted with human capital lost meanwhile, such as the northeast and northwest regions of China. Such unbalanced distribution of human capital may exacerbate the spatial disparity in economic development among different China's provinces [15,40,44]. In those economically undeveloped areas, the continuous human capital lost may cause an increasingly serious shortage of available labour force, especially under the circumstance that the ageing issue of labour gradually becomes prominent with a low birth rate (Data source: National Bureau of Statistics of China.).…”

“…Following human capital theory, such lower personal performance due to failure of optimising and maximising the utilisation of one's abilities and talents will further affect the achievement of one organisation and the regional economic development. Such disparity in economic development for different regions considerably influences future sustainable economic development of the whole society [15].…”

“…Therefore, such passive psychology and behaviour will in turn restrain these disadvantage people's performance, achievement and their prospective career development [6]. The gap between the vulnerable group (disadvantaged group) and their counterpart (advantaged group) will increase correspondingly, which negatively influences the economic sustainable development of whole society [7,15].…”

“…Fewer studies have considered the negative impacts of discrimination on human capital from psychological perspective, which has further influenced the rational utilisation of human resource and the human and economic sustainable development. Second, even though many Chinese studies have investigated economic sustainable development, most of them explored economic development in terms of ecology, environment, renewable resource and so forth [15][16][17][18]. Few Chinese research explored how human and economic sustainability could be maintained from the psychological perspective mentioned above.…”

Regional Heterogeneity of Migrant Rent Affordability Stress in Urban China: A Comparison between Skilled and Unskilled Migrants at Prefecture Level and Above

“…In the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei urban agglomeration, Beijing and Tianjin, as the provincial level municipalities, possess better basic conditions especially in policy support. The disparity in the regional economy in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei urban agglomeration explains the flow of migrants to Beijing and Tianjin, leading to an uneven distribution of the labor force in the whole region [118]. Housing rents in Beijing and Tianjin are thus rising fast, resulting in the high rent stress of migrants, especially low-skilled migrants [119][120][121].…”