How Natural Resource-Based Industry Affect Sustainable Development? An Evolutionary Study of China

Liping Fu, Xiaodi Jiang and Lanping He
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Liping Fu: School of Public Administration, College of Management and Economics, Tianjin University, Tijanjin 300072, China
Xiaodi Jiang: School of Public Administration, College of Management and Economics, Tianjin University, Tijanjin 300072, China
Lanping He: School of Public Administration, College of Management and Economics, Tianjin University, Tijanjin 300072, China

Sustainability, 2019, vol. 12, issue 1, 1-14

Abstract: The effects of natural resources on regional sustainable development is widely discussed by scholars and policymakers. However, most of the researchers concentrated on economic growth and technical development; evidence of how natural resources affect the soft environment is relatively lacking. Different from the neo-classical economics perspective of resource allocation, we used the evolutionary economics scope of factor creation and historical evolution to explore the effect on China’s regional entrepreneurship laid by the natural resource distribution on the early stage of China. The resource curse is explained from the aspect of regional entrepreneurship development in China. Based on the provincial panel data from China, in China’s industrial statistical yearbook and China’s statistical yearbook, we applied PLS-SEM (Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Model) to explore the path from natural resources to regional entrepreneurship. We also examined the mediating effect at the organizational scale, industry structure, the degree of regional openness, and the quality of human capital in the path between natural resource and entrepreneurship. The result shows that natural resources in the early-stage has negative effects on the growth of the entrepreneurship. Besides, industry structure and organizational scale are significant in terms of mediation effect in the path of the resource curse. An in-depth analysis is provided, and implications are discussed based on the results with the aim of revealing the mechanism and path-dependence of China’s regional development. The implications of this research include the suggestion of adapt the industry structure and motivate start-ups.

Keywords: entrepreneurship; natural resource; regional development; evolution; path dependence (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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