Effects of the Northeast China Revitalization Strategy on Regional Economic Growth and Social Development

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Springer Science Press www.springerlink.com/content/1002-0063

Effects of the Northeast China Revitalization Strategy on Regional Economic Growth and Social Development REN Wanxia1, 2, XUE Bing1, 2, YANG Jun3, LU Chengpeng4 (1. Key Laboratory of Pollution and Environment Engineering, Institute of Applied Ecology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shenyang 110016, China; 2. Key Lab for Environmental Computation and Sustainability of Liaoning Province, Shenyang 110016, China; 3. Jiangho Architecture, Northeastern University, Shenyang 110016, China; 4. Institute for County Economy Developments & Rural Revitalization Strategy, Lanzhou University, Lanzhou 730000, China) Abstract: Measuring the economic and social effects of the Northeast China Revitalization Strategy is critical to addressing regional sustainable development in China. To shed light on this issue, an integrated perspective was adopted that is combined with the difference-in-differences method to measure the effects of the strategy on economic growth and social development in Northeast China. The findings suggest that the strategy has significantly improved regional economic growth and per-capita income by increasing its gross domestic product (GDP) and GDP per capita by 25.70% and 46.00%, respectively. However, the strategy has significantly worsened the regional employment in the secondary industry of the region. In addition, the strategy has not significantly improved regional infrastructural road, education investment or social security, and has had no significant effect on mitigating regional disparity. In addition, the policy effects are highly heterogeneous across cities based on city size and characteristics. Therefore, there is no simple answer regarding whether the Northeast China Revitalization Strategy has reached its original goals from an integrated perspective. The next phase of the strategy should emphasize improving research and development (R&D) and human capital investments based on urban heterogeneity to prevent conservative path-dependency and the lock-in of outdated technologies. Keywords: policy evaluation; difference-in-differences (DID) method; regional disparity; urban heterogeneity; regional revitalization; old industrial base; Northeast China Citation: REN Wanxia, XUE Bing, YANG Jun, LU Chengpeng, 2020. Effects of the Northeast China Revitalization Strategy on Regional Economic Growth and Social Development. Chinese Geographical Science, 30(5): 791–809. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11769020-1149-5

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Introduction

Regional disparity is an imbalance between regions or between different locations within the same region, which is a persistent problem for both developed and developing nations (Chen and Zheng, 2008; Candelaria et al., 2009). This phenomenon conflicts with the neo-

classical growth model, which ultimately predicts worldwide economic convergence (Yang, 2002). Emerging evidence shows that regional disparity reflects a decline of internal factor mobility (Ganong and Shoag, 2017) and may contribute to weaker long-term growth if l