The Pattern and Evolutional Trend of Chinese Manufacturing's Spatial Agglomeration—an Empirical Analysis Based on Data from 1980 to 2011

By using of Chinese manufacturing Economical Statistics dataset, this paper explores the spatial distribution patterns and evolutional trends of China's double-digit manufacturing during 1980 and 2011. Meanwhile, we analyze the reasons causing the decline of spatial agglomeration in Chinese manufacturing after 2004. since the reform and opening up policy are also studied. We present the following conclusions.(1) As for spatial dimension, China's manufacturing had exhibited a clear trend of agglomeration, particularly towards the east coastal areas.(2) As for industrial features, the agglomeration trends vary tremendously among different types of manufacturing industry. Resource-intensive industries had relatively lower degree of spatial agglomeration, while capital and technology- intensive industries were associated with higher degree of agglomeration. The labor-intensive industries were relocated to the east coastal areas, which were close to the markets abroad, given their export-oriented nature.(3) As for time dimension, we can see a steady rise trend on the degree of agglomeration from 1980 to 2004. However, after reaching the highest level in 2004, the agglomeration degree kept going down during the period from 2004 to 2011.