Assessing the Impact of Regional Industrial Relocation in China

Through innovative application of the multi-regional input-output model (MRIO) and spatial econometric methods, this paper investigates the trends, scale, and environmental impacts of China's industrial relocation, providing new information from an input-output perspective. The findings indicate that the relocation of China's industrial sector has exhibited a distinctive trend of moving “westward” and “northward,” while the service sector has demonstrated a tendency to cluster in several developed regions. Moreover, the authors have identified that the energy efficiency in net inflow regions and other regions is affected differently by industrial relocation. Specifically, the net inflow of the industrial sector positively impacts the energy intensity of local provinces, but negatively affects neighboring provinces. Conversely, the net inflow of the service sector has the opposite effect. The research enriches the understanding of China's industrial relocation and provides targeted implications to further prove the high-quality of China's industrial relocation.