Analysis based on a two-region growth model of creative destruction reveals that quality innovation-driven economic growth reshapes spatial structures: the core region emerges as a growth pole through knowledge spillovers, and when trade freedom exceeds a critical threshold, it triggers industrial agglomeration toward the core. The coupling effect between firm relocation and labor mobility further reinforces this pattern. However, the market-driven innovation rate may remain below the social optimum in the long run. Therefore, policies should be designed around the “innovation-agglomeration-growth” cycle: The core region needs to strengthen intellectual property protection and increase investment in basic research to compensate for insufficient market incentives; the peripheral region should enhance its technological absorptive capacity through digital infrastructure and cross-regional collaboration, while implementing differentiated industrial policies to integrate into higher-value chains. Simultaneously, integration policies should be dynamically optimized—complemented with targeted compensation for peripheral areas at high levels of trade freedom—and factor mobility institutions should be refined to foster functionally complementary regional ecosystems. This approach promotes efficiency while maintaining spatial balance, enabling long-term coordinated development.
SCHUMPETERJ A, SWEDBERGR. The Theory of Economic Development[M]. Abingdon: Routledge, 2021.
[2]
AGHIONP, HOWITTP. A model of growth through creative destruction[J]. Econometrica, 1992, 60(2): 323-351.
[3]
GROSSMANG M, HELPMANE. Quality ladders in the theory of growth[J]. The Review of Economic Studies, 1991, 58(1): 43-61.
[4]
AKCIGITU, KERRW R. Growth through heterogeneous innovations[J]. Journal of Political Economy, 2018, 126(4): 1374-1443.
[5]
KRUGMANP. Increasing returns and economic geography[J]. Journal of Political Economy, 1991, 99(3): 483-499.
[6]
MARTINP, ANN R. Industrial location and public infrastructure[J]. Journal of International Economics, 1995, 39(3-4): 335-351.
[7]
FORSLIDR, OTTAVIANOG I P. An analytically solvable core-periphery model[J]. Journal of Economic Geography, 2003, 3(3): 229-240.
[8]
BALDWINR E. Agglomeration and endogenous capital[J]. European Economic Review, 1999, 43(2): 253-280.
[9]
FUJITAM, THISSEJ F. Economics of agglomeration[J]. Journal of the Japanese and International Economies, 1996, 10(4): 339-378.
[10]
BALDWINR E, FORSLIDR. The core-periphery model and endogenous growth: Stabilizing and destabilizing integration[J]. Economica, 2000, 67(267): 307-324.
[11]
BALDWINR E, MARTINP, OTTAVIANOG I P. Global income divergence, trade, and industrialization: The geography of growth take-offs[J]. Journal of Economic Growth, 2001, 6(1): 5-37.
[12]
BALDWINR E, FORSLIDR, MARTINP J, et al. Economic Geography and Public Policy[M]. Princeton, N.J. Princeton Univ. Press, 2003.
[13]
OTTAVIANOG, THISSEJ F. Chapter 58 agglomeration and economic geography[M]// Handbook of regional and urban economics: Elsevier, 2004: 2563-2608.
[14]
BOND-SMITHS. A Regional Model of Endogenous Growth with Creative Destruction[R/OL]. Hamilton: University of Waikato,[2012-1-28] [2025-12-15].
[15]
BOSCHMAR, FRENKENK. Technological relatedness, related variety and economic geography[J].Handbook of regional innovation and growth, 2011: 187.
[16]
BOSCHMAR. Relatedness as driver of regional diversification: A research agenda[J]. Regional Studies, 2017, 51(3): 351-364.
[17]
ARKOLAKISC, COSTINOTA, DONALDSOND, et al. The elusive pro-competitive effects of trade[J] Econometrica, 2003, 71(6): 1695-1725.
[18]
BOSCHMAR. Proximity and innovation: A critical assessment[J]. Regional Studies, 2005, 39(1): 61-74.
[19]
FRENKENK, BOSCHMAR A. A theoretical framework for evolutionary economic geography: Industrial dynamics and urban growth as a branching process[J]. Journal of Economic Geography, 2007, 7(5): 635-649.