Cross-Regional Transfer of Resource-Exhausted Enterprises and its Spillover and Stress Effects

Cross-Regional Transfer of Resource-Exhausted Enterprises and its Spillover and Stress Effects, coauthored by Li Cunfang and Wang Shijin, professors from the Business School at Jiangsu Normal University, and Li Danping, an associate professor from the Faculty of Economics and Management at East China Normal University, sheds light on the development process of resource-exhausted enterprises based on 155 projects on cross-regional transfer of resource-exhausted enterprises in eastern China and their implementation between 1992 and 2020. 

Resource-exhausted enterprises in eastern China have encountered serious problems with resource exhaustion and unsustainability due to long-term exploitation, while possessing such advantageous factors as key technologies, efficient management, excellent talent, and sufficient funds. In contrast, the development of resources in the central and western regions has such disadvantages as low industrial concentration, waste in resource development, potential risks of safety and new geological disasters, and damage to the ecological environment, while owning such advantageous factors as abundant resources, preferential policies, abundant manpower, and smooth logistics. The two sides have obvious complementary characteristics and coupling conditions. Once the coupling is successfully completed, a win-win situation can be achieved. 

The cross-regional transfer of resource-exhausted enterprises in the eastern regions has both intra-industry and inter-industry spillover effects. The intra-industry spillover effect is mainly generated through the demonstration and imitation channel and the competition and optimization channel, and the spillover efficiency of the latter channel is obviously higher than the former. The inter-industry spillover effect mainly comes from their participating in the industrial division of labor in the resource-rich central and western regions, embedding in the local industrial chain, bringing new changes in technology and management based on input-output relevance, propelling local inter-industry related enterprises to improve technology and management, and elevating management level, product quality, and total factor productivity. 

However, the intensity of the inter-industry spillover effect is lower than the intra-industry spillover effect, which can be primarily explained by the strong specialization of the resource industry and weak industrial relevance. Meanwhile, the transfer also produces a stress effect, the intensity of which displays an “inverted U-shaped” trend and is affected by some specific factors. 

Yu Li is former vice president of Tianjin University of Finance and Economics. 

Edited by YANG LANLAN