Mapping producer services networks in mainland Chinese cities

Miaoxi Zhao, Xingjian Liu, Ben Derudder, Ye Zhong and Wei Shen
Additional contact information
Miaoxi Zhao: South China University of Technology, China
Xingjian Liu: University of North Carolina at Charlotte, USA
Ben Derudder: Ghent University, Belgium
Ye Zhong: South China University of Technology, China
Wei Shen: Lancaster University Management School, UK

Urban Studies, 2015, vol. 52, issue 16, 3018-3034

Abstract: We analyse the geographies of urban networks created by leading producer services (PS) firms in China. Because of the national regulation of the Chinese state-led economy and the location strategies of global advanced producer services (APS) firms, the geography of global APS in China as examined by the Globalization and World Cities Research Network (GaWC) cannot be studied as a subnetwork of GaWC’s global network, but needs an empirical study based on a wide range of leading PS in the Chinese market. We explore the spatial differentiation in the connectivity of Chinese cities based on the location strategies of 323 APS firms in 287 Chinese cities. Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen emerge as the primary nodes. The spatial distribution of banking, securities, and insurance services networks appears to be more even than those of non-financial PS firms. Regional disparity exists in terms of polycentric urban development in coastal China, as well as in the centralisation model in central and western areas. We suggest that owing to the continued tight regulation of China’s state-led economy and the nature of the location strategies of ‘globalised’ PS firms, the urban networks created by Chinese PS firms are not only an extension of urban networks at a global scale but also an embodiment of economic activities at other scales.

Keywords: China; city network; producer services; urban system (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2015
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

Downloads: (external link)
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0042098014558541 (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:urbstu:v:52:y:2015:i:16:p:3018-3034

DOI: 10.1177/0042098014558541

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Urban Studies from Urban Studies Journal Limited
Bibliographic data for series maintained by SAGE Publications ().