The impact of spatial agglomeration on export of forest products manufacturing in China: evidence from enterprises’ data

ABSTRACT

Industrial spatial agglomeration is an important feature of modern industry development; however, little academic attention has been paid to the impact of industrial spatial agglomeration on the export of enterprises. Based on a large sample from a Chinese industrial enterprise database, this paper applies the EG index method to measure the spatial agglomeration level of forest products’ manufacturing and further explores its impact on exports. The results show that the spatial agglomeration level improved slightly in China’s forest products’ manufacturing during 1999–2009. However, the spatial agglomeration level of China’s forest products’ manufacturing is lower than is the average level of the total manufacturing industry. The regression results show that the level of spatial agglomeration has a significant positive impact on the export of enterprises in China’s forest products’ manufacturing industry. This may imply that the spatial agglomeration effect has not yet been fully exploited, and the level of spatial agglomeration in China’s forest products’ manufacturing industry needs to be further improved.

KEYWORDS:

• Industrial agglomeration
• forest products enterprises
• forest products exports
• China

Notes

¹ The 16 subdivided industries we studied are the sawn wood processing industry (2011); the wood chip processing industry (2012); the plywood manufacturing industry (2021); the fiber board manufacturing industry (2022); the particleboard manufacturing industry (2023); other wood-based panel manufacturing industries (2029); wood products’ manufacturing for production (2031); wood products’ manufacturing for living (2033); the bamboo, rattan, palm, and grass products’ industry (2040); the wooden furniture manufacturing industry (2110); the bamboo and rattan furniture manufacturing industry (2120); the pulp paper-making industry (2210); the machine-made paper and paperboard manufacturing industry (2221); the handmade paper manufacturing industry (2223); the processing paper manufacturing industry (2224); and the paper products industry (2230).

Additional information

Funding

This research was supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China [Grant 71603023 and 71873016]; Beijing Social Science Foundation Project [18GLC060]; and China Postdoctoral Science Foundation [Grant 2018M630088].