Urban Land Use Transitions and the Economic Spatial Spillovers of Central Cities in China’s Urban Agglomerations

Urbanization and land use transformation are typical characteristics of China in recent decades. Studying the effects of urban land use transitions (ULUT) on the economic spatial spillovers of central cities (ESSCC) can provide a reference for China to optimize cities’ land space layout and promote their coordinated development. Based on the direct and indirect effects of ULUT in central cities on the production factors and economic growth in other cities, this paper reveals the mechanisms underlying the influence of ULUT on ESSCC. Then, we usethe expanded geographical distance-weighted spatial Durbin model with the panel data of 152 Chinese urban agglomeration cities from 2003 to 2016 to empirically test it. The results show that, since 2003, the rate of urban land expansions, the level of urban land intensive use (ULIU), the degree of land marketization, and the urban land prices in China have increased substantially; and the proportionate supplies of industrial land, commercial land, and residential land have decreased. Moreover, ULUT between cities have significant spatial autocorrelations. The current ULUT have positive but small effects on ESSCC. Among them, ULIU has the greatest promotion effects on ESSCC. The impacts of ULUT on ESSCC vary greatly among urban agglomerations. The ULUT in central cities indirectly enhance the ESSCC, which mainly depend on the positive effects of ULUT on enterprise investment, infrastructure investment, labor and technological efficiency and the spatial spread effects of these production factors. This is the main intermediate mechanism by which the ULUT in central cities enhance the ESSCC. Continuing to strengthen ULIU, promote the improvement of land marketization, and establish and improve the coordination mechanism for the economic development of urban agglomerations will help to strengthen the ESSCC in urban agglomerations. The results provide evidence for how the Chinese government can enhance the ESSCC and promote the coordinated development of cities through ULUT under new urbanization.