In the context of unbalanced and inadequate development, a high-quality catch-up economic growth model that coordinates “quantity growth” and “quality upgrading” has become an inevitable choice for late-developing regions to narrow the gap. Although existing studies have conducted in-depth discussions on regional economic development gaps, they have rarely focused on the north-south gap, an issue that has become increasingly prominent in the current pattern of regional imbalance, and in particular, there is a lack of systematic research analyzing its growth dynamic mechanism from the perspective of “late-development catch-up”. As the cultivation of new quality productive forces has risen to become the core direction of current and future regional economic development, exploring its mechanism of action in the process of economic catch-up in late-developing regions not only provides a key analytical dimension for solving the problems of structural reform but also offers a new theoretical entry point for analyzing the underlying logic of regional development imbalance.
This paper uses provincial panel data from 2010 to 2022, constructs a production technology frontier oriented toward high-quality development, defines regional economic catch-up space based on output gaps, systematically explores the impact of new quality productive forces on China’s regional economic catch-up space, and verifies its internal mechanism of action. The findings are as follows: Regional economic catch-up space shows a decreasing trend, with the reduction level of economic catch-up space in northern regions being more significant than that in southern regions; the level of new quality productive forces in both northern and southern regions has achieved significant growth, yet growth in the north still lags behind that in the south; the impact of new quality productive forces on regional economic catch-up space presents an “inverted U” shape, and the impact effect is more prominent in southern regions; the structural efficiency of input factors plays a complete mediating role in the relationship between new quality productive forces and regional economic catch-up space; the effect of new quality productive forces on regional economic catch-up space is primarily determined by its inherent “new-quality” attributes, which have a particularly prominent impact on regional economic catch-up space, and its internal coordination mechanism has a positive role in reducing regional economic catch-up space; the driving effect of traditional productive forces in southern regions tends to weaken, and compared to the northern regions, the sustainability of its economic catch-up momentum appears slightly insufficient.
Compared with previous studies, the contributions of this paper are mainly reflected in the following aspects: (1) In terms of research perspective, it innovatively transforms China’s regional economic development differences into the specific concept of economic catch-up space, adopts a relative perspective to conduct in-depth analysis of regional economic development trends, especially the evolutionary trends of southern and northern regions, providing a more intuitive and clear target orientation for the economic growth of late-developing regions. (2) In terms of research framework, it integrates economic catch-up effects, factor structural efficiency, and new quality productive forces into a “total factor” analytical framework, conducts in-depth and systematic discussions on their organic connections and internal influence mechanisms, enriching and expanding the theoretical framework of regional coordinated development. (3) In terms of research content, it focuses on the dual dimensions of “quantitative growth” and “qualitative upgrading” in economic catch-up, systematically evaluates the in-depth impact of new quality productive forces on regional economic catch-up; carries out a dual deconstruction of “traditional” and “new-quality” attributes of new quality productive forces, deeply analyzes their impact effects on economic catch-up space, and systematically demonstrates the core theoretical characteristics of new quality productive forces, thus providing substantial supplementation and deepening to the existing theoretical system.
This paper verifies the key role of new quality productive forces in reducing China’s regional economic catch-up space, and provides empirical evidence and policy implications for fully releasing their economic effectiveness.
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