China Economic Quarterly 2021（Volume 21）

Best Paper Award for Chinese Economic and Business Studies

The China Economic Quarterly 2021（Volume 21）Best Paper Award for Chinese Economic and Business Studies goes to “Factor Market Integration and the Development of China’s Urban Clusters—An Analysis Based on Micro-firm Datast” , published in No.2, Volume 21, authored by Wei Tang from  Shanghai University of Finance and Economics.

Wei Tang

Remarks from the Award Committee：

Building a unified national market is an important focus for China's economy to give play to its super large market advantages. However, due to the traditional concept and the behavior of local governments, China's regional economic development has always been faced with serious market segmentation problems. In this process, city clusters have played an important role in market integration. However, there are obvious differences in the level of market integration among city clusters, and provincial boundaries still weaken market integration between cities within city clusters.

Tang Wei's paper "Factor Market Integration and the Development of Urban Agglomeration Economy" used enterprise-level data to build market segmentation indicators. This indicator is based on the difference of factor returns between regions, which has solid theoretical foundation. Then he used this indicator to analyze the factors that influence market integration, and confirmed the effects of city clusters on market integration, as well as the influence of provincial boundaries on market segmentation. The paper also made a separate analysis of the market segmentation caused by the cultural differences represented by dialects. The theoretical logic of the whole paper is clear and the writing is smooth. It is no doubt an excellent piece of work.

The paper also discussed the role of marketization in promoting market integration, which is credible in conclusion. However, the disadvantage is that the marketization index is a comprehensive index. To be exact, it is difficult to tell what the marketization index measures. For future research, if we can further evaluate how some specific policies or factors can promote market integration, we will be able to greatly promote the research on China's unified market and produce valuable policy recommendations accordingly. In addition, in the early Chinese literature, city clusters and metropolitan areas were mixed. Recently, these concepts have been gradually clarified in academic and practical terms. This paper is actually a study of city clusters, which needs to be clarified in this introduction.

China Economic Quarterly 2021（Volume 21）Best Paper Award Nominees(in random order):

1）Wei Tang, “Factor Market Integration and the Development of China’s Urban Clusters—An Analysis Based on Micro-firm Datast”, China Economic Quarterly 2021,21（01）PP.1-22.

2) Chao Li , Han Li and Limiao Tang, “High-speed Railway, Transportation Efficiency and Vertical Disintegration”, China Economic Quarterly 2021, 21（02））PP.51-70.

3) Miao Jin etc., “Limited Horizon and Time Discounting”, China Economic Quarterly 2021, 21（04）PP.1189-1212.

4) Zhicheng Xu and Yu Zhang，“Lightening Up Africa: The Effects of Chinese Aid on the Economic Development in Africa”，China Economic Quarterly 2021, 21（05）PP.1499-1520.

Introduction to the China Economic Quarterly Best Paper Award for Chinese Economic and Business Studies

In order to encourage high-quality economic research, China Economic Quarterly set up the Annual Best Paper Award since its inception. Each year one paper is selected as the best paper from the volume published in that year and the prize is set to RMB 40,000 yuan.

The winner is decided by majority votes on the nominated papers from the award committee, which is comprised of the nine editorial members of China Economic Quarterly.