The Evolution of the Spatial Patterns of Startup Firms in the Tibet Autonomous Region, China in the 21st Century

Liang Xu and Zhigao Liu
Additional contact information
Liang Xu: School of Geography, Liaoning Normal University, Dalian 116029, China
Zhigao Liu: Key Laboratory of Regional Sustainable Development Modeling, Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China

Sustainability, 2022, vol. 14, issue 15, 1-18

Abstract: It is increasingly recognized by policymakers and the academic community that startup firms play an important role in enhancing national and regional economic competitiveness. Existing studies have focused mainly on developed countries and highly marketed city-regions in developing countries, lacking sufficient attention to underdeveloped regions. The Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR) is the poorest province in post 1949 ‘New China’. In recent years, the TAR’s government has released a series of policies to encourage the establishment and development of startup firms, but understanding how to promote social development and economic growth through the creation and development of startup firms is still a significant issue for the TAR’s government. Therefore, taking Tibet as a case area, this article discusses the evolution of the spatial patterns of startup firms in underdeveloped regions in China. The findings include: ① The past two decades have witnessed tremendous growth in the number of startup firms; however, the number and rate of growth are not geographically even. ② In terms of geographical distribution, startup firms in the TAR have concentrated on or around key nodes along major transport corridors (place dependence); however, with the development of transportation infrastructure and development zones, they have also been established in new localities (place creation). ③ Although all subregions of the TAR have spatial agglomerations of startup firms, they are different in agglomeration characteristics. Finally, after acknowledging shortcomings in its research, this article calls for multi-sited research to investigate the diversity of the spatial patterns and dynamics of new firm formation in the underdeveloped regions of China.

Keywords: underdeveloped regions; startup firms; spatial pattern evolution; Tibet; kernel density estimation; Ripley’s L(d) function (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/14/15/9587/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/14/15/9587/ (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:gam:jsusta:v:14:y:2022:i:15:p:9587-:d:880417

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().