Firm Heterogeneity， Market Exit and the Skewed Productivity Spatial Distribution of China Manufacturing Firms
Wei Wei1 Yang Yong2 Xiong Lin3
1.School of Economics and Business Administration， Central China Normal University， Wuhan 430079；2.School of Economics and Management， Wuhan University， Wuhan 430073；3.Institute for International Studies， Wuhan University， Wuhan 430073
Abstract：This paper studies the shape of manufacturing firms' productivity spatial distribution by using the 1998－2008 industrial firm database from the China National Bureau of Statistics. It finds that the productivity distribution tends to be skewed and the skewness varies over times. Such variation is caused by the difference in exit behavior among heterogeneous firms with different productivity. Under the framework of New Economic Geography，it constructs a panel data consisting of 222 cities， then explores the linkage between economic geographic variables and the skewness of productivity distribution， and examined how these factors may influence the exit behavior of firms. The findings provide empirical evidence to further refine the New Economic Geography model， especially on the parameter setting on the firms' productivity distribution. Moreover the results also suggest that when regional policies such as planning of industrial structure and R&D research subsidy are implemented，policy makers should take into account of the shape of firms' productivity distribution to ensure the effectiveness of the policy.
2018, Vol. 57 
