Industrial Transformation and Urban Economic Efficiency Evolution: An Empirical Study of the Yangtze River Economic Belt

Industrial transformation and high-quality urban development have become the core issues of urban-rural coordination and the leap forward in development in the new era. The research perspective of ‘pattern-process-mechanism’ is needed to reveal the spatiotemporal correlation characteristics of industrial transformation and urban economic efficiency evolution, and to expand its systematic, comprehensive and regional characteristics. Based on the geographical cognitive of local effects and spatial non-stationarity, we used a quantile regression model and a geographically weighted regression model to analyze the dynamic mechanism of industrial transformation and urban economic efficiency to explain the path characteristics of urban development and industrial transformation of the Yangtze River economic belt. The conclusions are as follows: (1) From 2000 to 2015, the average economic efficiency in the Yangtze River economic belt increased from 0.05 to 0.332, and the pattern gradually changed from spatial homogeneity to spatial mosaic; (2) From 2000 to 2015, the range and intensity of industrial transformation in the Yangtze River economic belt showed an increasing trend, while the speed of industrial transformation showed a downward trend, and the high-value unit of the three showed the characteristics of gradual homogenization; (3) From the perspective of the impact of industrial transformation on urban economic efficiency, the impact of the range and speed of industrial transformation on urban economic efficiency was gradually weakened, while the impact of the intensity of industrial transformation on urban economic efficiency was gradually strengthened, and the patterns of the three show the characteristics of a spatially inverted U-shaped distribution with high values in the middle reaches and low values in the upstream and downstream areas.