Industrial Agglomeration and Development A Survey of Spatial.pdf

#9905—ECONOMIC GEOGRAPHY—VOL. 79 NO. 3—79304-Fan_Scott Economic Geography 79(3): 295–319, 2003. © 2003 Clark University. /econgeography Industrial Agglomeration and Development: A Survey of Spatial Economic Issues in East Asia and a Statistical Analysis of Chinese Regions C. Cindy Fan Department of Geography, University of California–Los Angeles, 1255 Bunche Hall, PO Box 951524, Los Angeles, CA 90095-1524 fan@ Allen J. Scott Department of Geography, University of California–Los Angeles, 1255 Bunche Hall, PO Box 951524, Los Angeles, CA 90095-1524 ajscott@ Abstract: In this article, we explore the issue of industrial agglomeration and its relationship to economic development and growth in the less-developed countries of East Asia. We present theoretical arguments and secondary empirical evidence as to why we should have strong expectations about finding a positive relationship between agglomeration and economic performance. We also review evidence from the literature on the roles of formal and informal institutions in East Asian regional economic systems. We then focus specifically on the case of China. We argue that regional development in China has much in common with regional development in other East Asian economies, although there are also important contrasts because of China’s history of socialism and its recent trend toward economic liber- alization. Through a variety of statistical investigations, we substantiate (in part) the expected positive relationship between agglomeration and economic perfor- mance in China. We show that many ki