Changes of Industrial Structure and Economic Growth in Coastal Regions of China: A Threshold Panel Model Based Study

Based on 53 coastal cities in China, this paper empirically tests the threshold effect of industrial structure changes on economic growth by establishing threshold panel model. The results show that the rationalization of industrial structure can significantly promote coastal economic growth, but after the real per capita GDP crosses a higher threshold, the driving force becomes weak. The upgrading of industrial structure has a significant negative impact on coastal economic growth within the range of smaller real per capita GDP. However, when the real per capita GDP is higher than a certain threshold, the upgrading of industrial structure can promote coastal economic growth weakly but significantly. In addition, the higher the level of industrial structure upgrading, the stronger the driving force of industrial structure rationalization for coastal economic growth. On the other hand, the effect of industrial structure upgrading on coastal economic growth is negative but not significant when the rationalization of industrial structure is high. However, industrial structure upgrading strongly and significantly slow down coastal economic growth when the rationalization of industrial structure is low.