The growth contribution of China's regional coordinated development strategy : on the dispute of regional policy paths

Balancing macroeconomic growth with regional equilibrium development is essential for China's pursuit of the modernization through regional coordinated development. Taking a macroeconomic output perspective and employing a counterfactual framework, this paper evaluates the economic growth effects of China's "place-based" and "people-based" regional policies, and explores the future implementation effects and optimal combinations of these policies under different market environments. Given that "people-based" policy cannot address market failures in spatial dimensions, the essence of the academic debate over regional policy paths lies in different understandings of the relationship between government and markets.