Impact of Urban Agglomeration Development Planning Policy on the Promotion of Efficiency of Urban Economic Development: Empirical Evidence from 283 Cities in China

Urban agglomeration development planning policy (referred to as planning policy in this paper) played a significant role in promoting regional economic development. However, an important issue is whether this planning policy promotes the efficiency of urban economic development. Therefore, based on panel data sets that cover 283 cities from 2007 to 2019, this paper used the planning policy that was approved by the China State Council as a quasi-natural experiment to investigate the effect of this planning policy on the efficiency of urban economic development. The results primarily found that the effect mechanisms of this planning policy on the efficiency of urban economic development contained two paths, which included the intermediary effects of industrial agglomeration and government action. In addition, the results showed that this planning policy played a leading role in influencing the efficiency of urban economic development with the concentration of secondary industries; however, implementing this planning policy did not improve the efficiency of urban economic development. In addition, the results show that the gap in economic development efficiency between cities was narrowing, and implementing this planning policy would facilitate the narrowing trend. Finally, to promote the high-quality development of the urban economy, this paper provides the targeted policy implications.