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

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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and human capital investments based on urban heterogeneity to prevent conservative path-dependency and the lock-in of outdated technologies.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Key Laboratory of Pollution and Environment Engineering, Institute of Applied Ecology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shenyang, 110016, China

    Wanxia Ren & Bing Xue

  2. Key Lab for Environmental Computation and Sustainability of Liaoning Province, Shenyang, 110016, China

    Wanxia Ren & Bing Xue

  3. Jiangho Architecture, Northeastern University, Shenyang, 110016, China

    Jun Yang

  4. Institute for County Economy Developments & Rural Revitalization Strategy, Lanzhou University, Lanzhou, 730000, China

    Chengpeng Lu

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  1. Wanxia Ren
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  2. Bing Xue
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Correspondence to Wanxia Ren.

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Under the auspices of Young- and Middle- aged Science and Technology Talent Support Program of Shenyang City (No. RC180221), Strategic Priority Research Program of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (No. XDA23070501), Open Research Project of Shouguang Facilities Agriculture Center in Institute of Applied Ecology (No. 2018SG-B-01), National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 41971166, 41701142)

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Ren, W., Xue, B., Yang, J. et al. Effects of the Northeast China Revitalization Strategy on Regional Economic Growth and Social Development. Chin. Geogr. Sci. 30, 791–809 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11769-020-1149-5

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