The Evolution of Industrial Structure for Marine Economic Growth in China: An Empirical Study on the Effects of Rationalization and Optimization

Against the background of China's new normal economy, the adjustment of the marine industrial structure is still a key issue, but current research on the relationship between the marine industrial structure and marine economic growth has not reached a consistent conclusion. This paper measures the structure of the marine industry with two indicators of the rationalization and optimization of the industrial structure and constructs a fixed effects model to explore the effects of the marine industrial structure on marine economic growth and the mechanism using panel data of China's coastal provinces, cities, and districts from 1997 to 2016. The results show the following. (1) In the study period, the rationalization of the marine industrial structure promoted marine economic growth, whereas the optimization of the marine industrial structure restrained marine economic growth. (2) The mediation test shows that the rationalization of the marine industrial structure promotes the growth of the marine economy by improving the labor productivity of the marine industry, whereas the optimization of the marine industrial structure restrains the growth of the marine economy by curbing the productivity of the marine service industry. (3) After adding the moderator of government intervention into the model, it is found that the higher the degree of government intervention is, the more significant the promoting effect of the rationalization of the marine industrial structure on marine economic growth, and the negative effect of the optimization of the marine industrial structure on marine economic growth is significantly reduced.