关键词: 生产分割, 网络权力, DEA窗口模型, 知识溢出, 绿色经济效率, 流动空间, 门槛效应

Abstract:

Over the past 30 years, production fragmentation of value chains has promoted the rapid development of urban networks in China. Cities in China have increasingly been transformed from production bases in the “space of places” to network nodes in the “space of flows”. In the network paradigm, the green economic efficiency of cities would be increasingly more affected by network effects, especially their power to utilize vital network resources and knowledge spillovers from network partners. In this study, data on headquarter and branch locations of the largest 500 public companies in China in 2019 were subjected to the ownership linkage model to approximate the urban network, and the total green factor productivity of cities were measured based on the data envelopment analysis (DEA) windows model, then the impacts of network power and knowledge spillovers on urban green economic efficiency were examined by using two broad types of econometric models, i.e., the panel Tobit model and Hansen threshold model. The three main findings are as follows. First, network power and knowledge spillovers through pipeline have been playing an important role in the sustainable development of urban economy. Higher dominance of network resources and higher performance of partners’ economy both induce higher green efficiency. Second, China’s urban network is in the stage of increasing returns. Network power and knowledge spillovers have both threshold effects and increasing marginal effects on urban green economic efficiency. Third, compared with cities in the periphery position, in the central and western regions and with small population size, network power and knowledge spillovers show significant positive impacts on cities in the core position, in the eastern regions and with large population size, indicating that the green efficiency gap between cities in China tends to be widened in multiple dimensions. The analysis results have clear policy implications. In the future, the Chinese government should promote the flow of resources and knowledge within urban networks to achieve higher levels of green development, and pay close attention to the heterogeneous impacts of network development and actively respond to the possibly increasing gaps in urban green economic efficiency.

Key words: production fragmentation, network power, DEA windows model, knowledge spillovers, green economic efficiency, space of flows, threshold effects