City size and manufacturing TFP of China : a quantitative analysis during 1998-2007

• Main Authors: Cui, Lin, Liu, Nayuan, Wu, Songrong
• Other Authors: Tang Yang
• Format: Final Year Project
• Language: English
• Published: 2018
• Subjects: DRNTU::Social sciences
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10356/73972
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

China’s total factor productivity (TFP) has been of major interest to scholars as a main source of the country’s outstanding economic development during the past 4 decades. In the meantime, following the initiation of the Reform and Opening-up Policy, urbanization in China has increased dramatically. Our paper contributes to the discussion by estimating China’s prefecture-level TFP from 1998 to 2007 in 278 cities using the ACF method (Ackerberg et al., 2006). The empirical analysis has indicated the significant effects of factors such as employment, government expediture, etc. Moreover, it reveals an ambiguous influence of city size. We further propose a two-period two-sector economic development model. The quantitative analysis on the model suggests an non-monotonic relationship between city size and TFP.