The rise of border areas in an integrated region of China

Abstract

Increasing economic integration between countries has spurred the rapid growth of border areas. However, whether city-level boundary areas can benefit from regional integrations within one regime is unknown. Along with growing numbers of integrated regions in developing economies, especially in China, understanding the extent to which geographic growth and location conditions play roles in the process is of great importance. Therefore, this study used night-time light data between 2013 and 2018 to investigate the growth patterns of different parts of the highly integrated Pearl River Delta (PRD) of China. The results showed that border areas, especially those with emerging economies, grew faster than city centers during the study period. Moreover, we built ordinary least square (OLS) regression and spatial econometrics models to understand how location conditions across the two cities affected the growth process. The models showed that the urbanization levels across the two cities had inverted U-shaped effects on the growth of border areas. The social security costs also exhibited negative effects. The study findings can help policymakers better understand emerging growth areas and, accordingly, deploy appropriate policies to overcome the obstacles to the integration process and ensure equity in development opportunities.