Abstract Step-by-step capacity expansion is one of the commonly used paradigms for the steady development of Chinese urban agglomerations. From the perspective of nearby cities of megalopolis group in the Yangtze River Delta, this paper analyzes the internal logic and the economic growth effects of surrounding cities actively integrating into a megalopolis. The results find that during the sample observation period, the economic growth is mainly driven by factors in cities in the Yangtze River Delta, and the economic growth resulted from the urban fixed-asset investment dominates the actual economic growth in megalopolis group in Yangtze River Delta. Effect of expansion to a megalopolis is lower than expected in the Yangtze River Delta, and the pulling effect of economic growth brought about by the surrounding cities integrating into megalopolis is limited. When the reasons of time of integrating are examined, it is found that the city’s output level and construction of modern transportation system are important reference standards for these cities’ timing of joining megalopolis. The converging industrial structure has a negative impact on time of joining. For cities that want to join the megalopolis group in the future, it is necessary to weaken the document effect and to lower expectation.
WANG Quan-Zhong,BANG Chang-Sheng. Expansion of Megalopolis Groups and Urban Economic Growth ——Empirical Evidence from the Yangtze River Delta. Economic Survey, 2018, 35(5): 051.
2018, Vol. 35 
