Resource industry dependence and high-quality economic development of Chinese style: Reexamining the effect of the “Resource Curse”

Abstract

In resource-dependent regions, the meaning of high-quality economic development has yet to be clarified by published research, despite substantial scholarly interest in the topic. With the help of the economic development index developed by the Chinese government, this paper accurately measures high-quality economic development in 30 provinces in China and investigates how resource dependence and government governance capability affect regional high-quality economic development. Research has found that resource industry dependence has a significant inhibitory effect on high-quality economic development. Additionally, the analysis of the mechanisms revealed that resource industry dependence reduces high-quality economic development through a series of effects including crowding out innovation, weakening coordination, lagging green development, hindering global openness, and sharing in weakening. Further research has revealed that government governance capacity weakens the impact of resource industry dependence on high-quality economic development. A detailed analysis of three subsystem indicators of government governance capacity, namely policy planning, capability commitment, and performance assessment, indicates that they all have a weakening effect. To this end, the paper proposes policy recommendations, including increasing innovation inputs, advancing industrial restructuring, promoting green development, enhancing marketization levels, and constructing a diversified employment system. These measures aim to transform resource disadvantages into resource advantages and facilitate high-quality economic development.