Abstract
Green economic development is an effective tactic for China to cope with the predicament of resources and the environment. As “smoke-free industries”, producer services are becoming the main contributors to urban green economic development (UGED). The paper adopts the super-efficiency EBM model to estimate the UGED index of 268 Chinese cities from 2005 to 2019. Based on the theoretical analysis, econometric models are constructed to systematically test how the specialized and diversified agglomeration of producer services impacts UGED. The findings reveal that both agglomeration modes considerably enhance UGED in the local area and its surroundings. Diversified agglomeration exerts a stronger radiation and promotion effect than specialized agglomeration. In addition, the impact of the two agglomeration modes on UGED demonstrates pronounced heterogeneity in urban scales, economic development stages, and industries. Furthermore, mechanism studies suggest that agglomeration substantially boosts UGED by improving human capital, technological innovation, and upgrading industrial structure. As such, our findings serve as an empirical basis for understanding the mechanism of the impact of PSA on UGED and also offer significant insight for local governments to adopt differentiated industrial policies to enhance the positive agglomeration effect on UGED.
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Notes
In the notice, Chinese cites are classified into four categories according to their permanent population. A city with a population of less than 500,000 is a small city. Cities with a population of more than 500,000 and less than 1 million are medium-sized cities. A city with a population of more than 1 million and less than 5 million is a large city; Cities with a population of more than 5 million are megacities.
A measure of EA is derived from the ratio between the value of tertiary industry output and that of secondary industry output. The reason lies in that on average, the ratio of primary industry’s output to GDP does not matter since the ratio of primary industry’s output to GDP is tiny, about 6.08% and this percentage does not differ significantly across all cities.
According to per capita output value and technology intensity, high-end producer services and medium and low-end producer services are divided (Yang et al., 2020a). “Transportation, warehousing, post and telecommunications”, “leasing and commercial services” and “wholesale and retail trade” are defined as medium and low-end producer services. “Finance”, “information transmission, computer services and software”, “scientific research, technical services and geological survey” are defined as high-end producer services.
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The authors acknowledge financial support from Research Funds for Universities of Xinjiang Autonomous Region (XJEDU2022J037); Humanities and Social Sciences Program Chongqing Municipal Education Commission (18SKSJ034). Special Project of Shanghai Business School on “Deepening Learning and Implementing the Spirit of the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China” (AX-10999-1103-1102). The usual disclaimer applies.
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Yan, J., Zhao, J., Yang, X. et al. Is producer services agglomeration a “new engine” for urban green economic development? an econometric analysis of Chinese cities. Environ Dev Sustain (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10668-023-03331-9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10668-023-03331-9