CRE/DUSP Professor Siqi Zheng discusses the impact of industrial parks on China’s socioeconomic and urban growth. Be sure to read the full article on MIT News.
In the co-authored paper “The birth of edge cities in China: Measuring the effects of industrial parks policy”, researches examine the effects of 110 industrial parks near eight cities in China: Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen, Tianjin, Dalian, Wuhan, Xi’an, and Chengdu.
The researchers measured the areas two kilometers (1.2 miles) outside the industrial park zones and found that on average, in these neighboring places, employment increased 41 percent, total factor productivity increased 8 percent, and wages increased 3 percent.
Despite the positive effects of industrial parks, “One size does not fit all,” Zheng observes, noting the “heterogeneous effects” of the Chinese industrial parks in the study.
