Land Use Change from Non-urban to Urban Areas

This reprint is related to land-use change and non-urban and urban relationships at all spatiotemporal scales and also focuses on land-use planning and regulatory strategies for a sustainable future. Spatiotemporal dynamics, socioeconomic implication, water supply problems and deforestation land degradation (e.g., increase of imperviousness surfaces) produced by urban expansion and their resource requirements are of particular interest. The Guest Editors expect that this reprint will contribute to sustainable development in non-urban and urban areas

Testing for Energy Market Integration in China

This paper investigates energy market integration in China by employing univariate, and panel-based unit root tests and Granger causality tests applied to a new energy price data set. We identify price series that converge either to absolute or relative price parity. In addition we estimate the rates (speed) at which relative prices converge to their long-run values, and the direction of causality. The results show that gasoline and diesel markets are very well integrated as a whole; and that once some geographically isolated regions are excluded, we can regard the coal market as integrated; however, the electricity market is not well integrated. The estimated intercept terms are all very small and close to zero, such that most of the relative price series can be regarded as convergent to absolute price parity. The convergence rates vary little and are relatively short when compared internationally. A rich set of causal relationships are established many showing bi-directional causality between regional centres.China; Energy; Market integration; Price convergence; Time series tests

Characteristics of the Evolution of China’s Regional Economic Differences Based on the Perspective of Urban Agglomerations

Urban agglomerations are becoming an important spatial carrier for China’s industrialisation and new-type urbanisation, and an important engine to drive the national economic development, and regional economic differences based on urban agglomerations have also become a new feature of China’s regional differences in the new period. Based on the urban agglomeration perspective, we quantitatively measure China’s regional economic differences from 2001 to 2020 through the two-stage nested decomposition method of the Theil Index, and analyse the evolutionary characteristics of the economic differences within the 19 urban agglomerations in the country by decomposing them into four major regions: East, Central, West and Northeast, and the differences between the urban agglomerations within the regions and the economic differences within the urban agglomerations. The study found that: (1) Overall the overall differences of the region with urban agglomerations as the core were gradually shrinking. In terms of the trend of changes in the differences at all levels, the economic differences between regions and within urban agglomerations were significantly reduced, and the changes in the economic differences between urban agglomerations were not obvious. In terms of contribution rate, the contribution rate of intra-urban agglomeration differences had always remained at a high level, reaching about half of the overall economic differences in the country, and was the primary contributing factor to the overall economic differences. (2) In terms of absolute differences, the economic differences among urban agglomerations in the four regions showed a clear pattern of “East > West > Central ≈ Northeast”. (3) The intra-cluster economic differences of each urban agglomeration in 20 years were at different levels and showed a differentiated trend of evolution, and the areas with relatively more prominent intra-cluster economic differences were the Pearl River Delta urban agglomeration in the east, and the Lan-xi urban agglomeration and the North Slope of Tianshan Mountain urban agglomeration in the northwestern region. The economic differences of urban agglomerations are the result of a variety of factors, and the reasons for the formation of regional economic differences are analysed from the factors of economic location, national regional development policies, human resource factors and high-speed traffic differences within the urban agglomerations

Ghost city phenomenon along China’s high-speed railway grid

A fresh urbanism era appears in China with the development of high-speed railway (HSR). Voluminous numbers of local governments are designing and erecting novel cities oriented to the HSR stations with the objective of gaining benefits from the HSR system. Nevertheless, a huge number of these freshly erected districts or cities entail a tremendously high vacancy rate, thereby resulting in 'ghost cities'. The present paper commences with an outline of the China's urban HSR growth and the phenomena of ghost cities. After a literature review on worldwide urban HSR development, the reasons behind the 'ghost city phenomenon' in China are analysed. In the end, the study is concluded by proposing several suggestions for HSR development

The emergence of clusters in societal transition : a coevolutionary perspective on the TCM cluster at Tonghua/China

New industries are recognized as new impetus to national wealth. At the same time, they are increasingly becoming geographically concentrated in some well defined areas. But current studies on the emergence of industrial clusters tend to analyze favorable driving factors. This dissertation takes the example of a Chinese endogenous industrial cluster, the traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) cluster at Tonghua, a small peripheral city in Northeastern China, to contribute to the theoretical understanding of the emergence of industrial cluster as a co-evolutionary process of organizations, institutions and firms, or, to put it more broadly, as economic evolution embedded in complex socio-economic contexts. The recent advance in evolutionary and co-evolutionary economics which considers the economy and economic landscape as dynamic process instead of equilibrium can be regarded as a part of broader and more intellectual turn of quest for history in social sciences. Although the principle of "history matters" is widely acknowledged, it tends to be reduced to a quite simple concept of "path dependence". However, path dependence cannot offer space for new path creation, except from an external shock. Accordingly, the role of human conscious action or Schumpeterian innovation should be added to path analysis through the concept of path creation. Furthermore, and more importantly, history should be understood as context, and historical context can be explored through the understanding of multi-paths and interaction among them over time. So path inter-dependence (co-evolution between paths) would be useful to better understand the complexity of real history. Since the industrial cluster is composed of interconnected firms and is also subject to changes in institution and technology, I will focus on the multi-way causal relationship between firm, institution and technology. The theorizing is not entirely new, but most of the theoretical and empirical discussions are at the national or industrial level, not regional or local one. A competitive cluster can be regarded as a co-evolutionary hotspot in which multiple populations actively interact and are interconnected. Co-evolution itself is a dynamic and evolutionary process. So I will adopt a dynamic and evolutionary view to examine co-evolutionary degree or co-evolutionary effects in the Tonghua pharmaceutical cluster through time. After a brief introduction which deals with the national institutional changes that are highly associated with new venture creation, entrepreneurship, and innovation, with registrations on drug and healthcare system, and with changes in market demand of China’s pharmaceutical industry and geographical distribution, I will collect evidences from three aspects based upon field survey and second hand data, i.e., the history of the enterprises, the origin of entrepreneurship, and the knowledge of evolution, linking their respective generative relationships through the genealogical method. In this volume, the evolution of the Tonghua pharmaceutical firm organization, the formation of local entrepreneurship, historical accumulation of knowledge, and particular knowledge of transfer among generations of firms will be discussed, then I will probe into co-adaption and co-evolution between local formal and informal institutions and organizations in Tonghua’s TCM industry. In addition, I will try to understand the co-evolutionary process at different geographical levels (namely, national and local). In summary, my main findings include the following several points. Firstly, in the course of the emergence of Tonghua’s pharmaceutical industry, local social networks and the traditional alliance between enterprises and government have played important roles. Secondly, the most important factor that influences the evolution of endogenous industrial clusters such as the Tonghua pharmaceutical industry in transitional countries is not the change in technology, but the change in fundamental national institutions. Thirdly, the success of the Tonghua pharmaceutical industry can be ascribed to the creation of multiple paths largely based on initial conditions, which implies that economic policy should have historical consciousness, namely, new economic innovation should make full use of both historical legacies and existing assets. Finally, it is co-adaption and co-selection of firm organization, institution, and technology that have jointly made Tonghua’s pharmaceutical industry become highly competitive, which means that whether one region can grasp new opportunities partially depends on its capabilities to coordinate a varity of development agents.Neue Industrien werden im Allgemeinen als Impuls der Entwicklung zu nationalem Wohlstand verstanden. Zugleich sind sie überwiegend an einigen geographisch genau definierten Orten konzentriert. Aktuelle Studien zur Emergenz dieser Industrie-Cluster neigen dazu, entsprechende begünstigende Faktoren zu analysieren. Mit dem Beispiel eines endogenen Clusters in China, dem Cluster der Traditionellen Chinesischen Medizin (TCM) in Tonghua, will diese Dissertation zum theoretischen Verständnis der Emergenz von Industrie-Clustern unter der Perspektive eines ko-evolutorischen Prozesses von Form der Organisation, Institutionen und Unternehmen beitragen. Oder, um es etwas breiter auszudrücken, diese Emergenz als ökonomische Evolution zu verstehen, die in einen komplexen sozio-ökonomischen Kontext eingebettet ist. Obgleich der Vorstellung, Geschichte habe eine Bedeutung („history matters“), überwiegend in der Forschung zugestimmt wird, bleibt diese oft auf das Konzept der Pfadabhängigkeit beschränkt. Das aber eröffnet keinen Raum für die Betrachtung endogener Pfad-Bildung. Dem Konzept der Pfad-Bildung entsprechend sollte jedoch die Pfadanalyse ergänzt werden um bewusste Handlungen des Menschen oder auch um Innovationen im Schumpeterschen Sinn. Wichtiger ist außerdem, dass Geschichte als ein Kontext verstanden werden sollte, in dem mehrere Pfade ko-existieren und im Zeitverlauf auch interagieren. So wäre ein Konzept der Pfad-Interdependenz (oder der Ko-Evolution von Pfaden) nützlich zum besseren Verständnis der Komplexität „wirklicher“ Geschichte. Weil das Industriecluster sich aus untereinander verflochtenen Unternehmen zusammen setzt und zugleich Gegenstand von Änderungen in den Institutionen und der Technologie ist, konzentriert sich die Dissertation auf vielseitige kausale Beziehungen von Unternehmen, Institutionen und Technologie. Ein wettbewerbsfähiges Cluster kann aus geographischer Sicht als ein „hot spot“ der Ko-evolution betrachtet werden, in dem verschiedenartige Populationen aktiv untereinander agieren und daher miteinander verflochten sind. Ko-Evolution selbst ist dann ein dynamischer und evolutorischer Prozess. Die Arbeit wählt diese Perspektive, um das Maß und die Wirkungen der Ko-Evolution im Pharma-Cluster von Tonghua im Zeitverlauf zu analysieren. Die Dissertation fußt auf empirischen Erhebungen, ergänzt um eine Dokumenten-Analyse, zur Geschichte der Unternehmen, der Herkunft der Unternehmerschaft sowie der Evolution von Wissen. Sie diskutiert die Evolution in den Organisationsformen der Pharma-Unternehmen in Tonghua, die Bildung einer lokalen Unternehmerschaft, die historische Akkumulation von Wissen und den besonderen Wissenstransfer zwischen Generationen von Unternehmen. Schließlich untersucht sie die Ko-Adaption und Ko-Evolution von lokalen formalen und informellen Institutionen und Organisationen der TCM-Industrie in Tonghua. Die folgenden Punkte betreffen die wichtigsten Ergebnisse der Dissertation: Erstens haben sehr langfristige und dichte lokale soziale Netzwerke eine erhebliche Rolle im Lauf der Emergenz der Pharma-Industrie in Tonghua gespielt. Zweitens ist der wichtigste Faktor in der Pharma-Industrie nicht im technologischen Fortschritt durch Anstrengungen bei Forschung und Entwicklung (FuE) zu sehen, sondern im institutionellen Wandel sowohl auf nationaler als auch auf lokaler Ebene. Drittens kann der Erfolg der Pharma-Industrie in Tonghua der Bildung multipler Pfade zugeschrieben werden, die auf bestimmten Anfangsbedingungen gründen. Das bedeutet, dass die neue ökonomische Entwicklungspolitik sowohl das historische Erbe als auch bestehende Aktivposten in vollem Umfang nutzen sollte. Schließlich ist festzustellen, dass Ko-Adaption und Ko-Selektion der Unternehmens-Organisation, von Institutionen und Technologie zusammen die Pharma-Industrie von Tonghua in hohem Maße wettbewerbsfähig gemacht haben. Ob eine Region neue Gelegenheiten ergreifen kann, hängt folglich teilweise von ihrer Fähigkeit ab, eine Vielfalt von Entwicklungs-Agenten zu koordinieren

‘Emptying the cage, changing the birds’: state rescaling, path-dependency and the politics of economic restructuring in post-crisis Guangdong

This paper evaluates how economic restructuring in Guangdong is entwined with the politicization of state rescaling during and after the global financial crisis of 2008. It shows how a key industrial policy known as ‘double relocation’ generated tensions between the Guangdong government, then led by Party Secretary Wang Yang, and the senior echelon of the Communist Party of China in Beijing. The contestations and negotiations that ensued illustrate the dynamic entwinement between state rescaling and institutional path-dependency: the Wang administration launched this industrial policy in spite of potentially destabilizing effects on the prevailing national structure of capital accumulation. This foregrounds, in turn, the constitutive and constraining effects of established, national-level policies on local, territorially-specific restructuring policies