Acta Geographica Sinica ›› 2017, Vol. 72 ›› Issue (8): 1392-1407.doi: 10.11821/dlxb201708005

• Industrial Development • Previous Articles     Next Articles

The evolutionary mechanism of financial industry agglomeration in central cities of inland China: A case study of Zhengdong New District in Zhengzhou

Jianji ZHAO1,2(), Yanhua WANG1,2, Kewen LV1,2, Lefeng RU3, Changhong MIAO1,2()   

  1. 1. Key Research Institute of Yellow River Civilization and Sustainable Development & Collaborative Innovation Center on Yellow River Civilization of Henan Province, Henan University, Kaifeng 475001, Henan, China
    2. College of Environment and Planning, Henan University, Kaifeng 475000, Henan, China
    3. College of Construction Management and Real Estate, Henan University of Economics and Law, Zhengzhou 450046, China
  • Received:2016-07-12 Revised:2017-03-21 Online:2017-08-20 Published:2017-08-20
  • Supported by:
    National Natural Science Foundation of China, No.41430637, No.41601119, No.41501138, No.41301115;China Postdoctoral Science Special Foundation, No.2014T70673;Humanities and Social Sciences Foundation of Ministry of Education, No.15XJC790010, No.15YJC790111;Major Program of Philosophy and Social Sciences of Henan Province, No.2014-SZZD-20;Program of Science & Technology Innovation Talents in Universities of Henan Province;Young Scholar Foundation of Henan Province, No.2014GGJS-026

Abstract:

Evolutionary economic geography and institutional economic geography, which emerged in the late 1990s, provides the important perspective to the dynamics and spatial process of industry agglomeration. Based on the evolutionary economic geography and institutional economic geography, an analytical framework, including window of locational opportunity, financial enterprise/institution spinoff, regional branching and institutional thickness, has been proposed, and a particular perspective with respect to the key problem in economic geography of how to explain the rise and dynamics of financial industry agglomeration in inland regional central city has been explained. Accroding to financial statistics during the period 2003-2014, the relative questionnaires and qualitative interviews were conducted in Zhengdong New District. The findings can be summarized as follows: The establishment of Zhengdong New District has opened the window of locational opportunity for the financial industry in its formation stage; the spinoff of financial institution has played an important endogenous dynamic part in financial industry agglomeration in its fast development stage; regional branching laid a solid foundation for the innovation of financial formats and high-end elements agglomeration in the promotion stage; in the entire process of financial industry agglomeration, the continuous improvement of government support and institutional arrangements strengthened the institutional thickness, and the self-reinforcing mechanism made the stickiness of the institutional space continuously improving. However, some differences were found between financial industry and manufacturing industry, the agglomeration of financial industry was lack of the technology-related firms derived from university laboratory, academic institutions and existing industry, which had a stronger dependence on the stickiness of institutional thickness.

Key words: evolutionary economic geography, institutional economic geography, financial industrial agglomeration, regional central city, Zhengdong New District