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About This Journal

Economic Research Journal is supervised by Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, and sponsored by Institute of Economics, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. It aims to conduct researches on the new situation and new problems in China’s reform and opening up, economic development and transformation. Its scope covers all fields of China economics, including economic theory, finance, taxation, enterprise, new rural construction, marketing and accounting, etc. The journal, included in CSSCI, possesses a very high academic position in both domestic and oversea economic and management domain with which you can have a overall understanding about China’s comprehensive economics.
Editorial Board

Editor-in-Chief
Pei Changhong

Deputy Editor-in-Chief
Zhang Ping, Zheng Hongliang, Wang Cheng

China’s level and status of industry convergence in countries (regions) along the Belt and Road: industry comparisons, regional gaps and associated factors

YAO Xing;PU Yue;WU Gang;WANG Bo;WANG Lei

Economic Research Journal,Vol 54,No. 09

The coordinated development of China and countries (regions) along the Belt and Road through upstream and downstream industrial chains and related industries is the key to a high-level and in-depth promotion of economic integration along the Belt and Road. However, current research on industry convergence is limited to the discussion of the relations between different industries in one country. Therefore, it is necessary to extend industry convergence from the domestic to the international level when analyzing the development of industry convergence of countries (regions) along the Belt and Road. This paper expands research on industry convergence in two ways. First, the narrow concept of industry convergence is extended to a broader concept of industry convergence. The traditional narrow concept of industry convergence only focuses on inter-industry relations in a country and emphasizes the division of industry boundaries, which is difficult to expand to analyze international industrial problems. The extended concept of industry convergence refers to industrial interactions between countries and emphasizes cooperative behavior and supportive relations between countries and industries. Second, we apply the traditional measure of domestic industry convergence to the analysis of international industry convergence. The traditional measure of industry convergence is mainly based on the correlation between industries, technological or business relationships, input and output relationships, and interaction relationships between firms. We combine the input-output method with the social network analysis method to build a network of country-industry relations and study the evolution of international industry convergence through the overall structure and status change in the network. Accordingly, this paper mainly uses the input-output data of 25 industries and 61 countries (regions) along the Belt and Road from 1995 to 2013 obtained from the Eora MIRO database, with “country-industry” as nodes and “country-industry” input-output relationship as edges, to build a directed and weighted industry support network along the Belt and Road. Based on the best network method, this paper systematically analyzes the breadth of industry convergence, the depth of national convergence, and the status of national industry convergence in China along the Belt and Road, and explores the main associated factors of the level and status of industry convergence. The results are as the follows: (1) the breadth and depth of industry convergence between countries (regions) along the Belt and Road and the economic circle of industry interactive convergence are growing; (2) China’s industry convergence among countries (regions) along the Belt and Road is growing in breadth, depth, and status, and there is a development imbalance characterized by “strong outward support and low inward gravitation”; (3) China’s labor-intensive manufacturing, capital-intensive manufacturing, and producer service industries have higher outward support status along the Belt and Road, while China’s resource-intensive industries have higher inward gravitation status; and (4) the level of industry convergence of China with industries of countries (regions) along the Belt and Road is positively related to common language and economic and political institutional differences, but negatively related to geographical distance, legal institutional distance, and differences in national industrial development. Based on the results, we believe that the key to improving the convergence and status of China’s industries with industries of countries (regions) along the Belt and Road lies in promoting industrial transformation and upgrading internally and in improving the economic and trade environment along the Belt and Road externally. Corresponding policy recommendations are detailed. The innovations and contributions of this paper are as follows. First, the issue of international industry convergence is analyzed using inter-country, inter-industry, and input-output relationship and the social network method, which provides a new research perspective and a new analytical framework for the discussion of international industry convergence. Second, the level, status, and associated factors of industry convergence in industries in China with industries of countries (regions) along the Belt and Road are systematically studied, providing empirical evidence of relevant theoretical research related to industry convergence in countries (regions) along the Belt and Road and a scientific and reasonable policy reference for how China can improve the level and quality of industry convergence with countries (regions) along the Belt and Road.