Does regional coordinated development enhance urban resilience? Evidence from China's Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region

Minghai Lin and Bo Peng

Economic Analysis and Policy, 2025, vol. 87, issue C, 1232-1261

Abstract: Regional coordinated development policies have emerged as crucial economic instruments to address regional disparities and promote balanced growth. However, while existing research extensively examines these policies' direct economic impacts, their potential role in enhancing urban resilience - cities' capacity to withstand and recover from various shocks - remains unexplored. Using the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei (BTH) Coordinated Development strategy as a quasi-natural experiment, this study employs a difference-in-differences approach using panel data from Chinese prefecture-level cities (2010-2021) to evaluate this economic policy's effectiveness in promoting urban resilience. Our findings indicate that: (1) BTH policy significantly enhanced urban resilience by approximately 6.5 %; (2) this enhancement operates through four economic mechanisms: government intervention, openness to foreign trade, urban income levels, and industrial agglomeration; (3) BTH policy promoted balanced improvement in urban resilience across the region, significantly enhancing ecological resilience in megacities (4.6 %) and resilience across most dimensions in ordinary cities. This study advances research by revealing how regional economic coordination policies can enhance urban resilience through complementary development among different cities. These findings yield actionable insights for policymakers designing regional coordination strategies to enhance both economic development and urban resilience, particularly in developing economies.

Keywords: Urban resilience; Regional coordinated development; Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region; Policy effects; Difference-in-differences model (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:ecanpo:v:87:y:2025:i:c:p:1232-1261

DOI: 10.1016/j.eap.2025.07.003

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