Coordinated Development of Metropolitan Logistics and Economy Toward Sustainability

Metropolitan economic development can yield more logistics demands and provide stronger financial support for logistics industry, and logistics development in turn can boost economic growth by reducing transaction cost and increasing economic operation efficiency. Their coordinated development between the two can better promote sustainable, steady and fast growth of metropolitan economy. However, little quantitative research has been conducted on their mutual relations. To fill this gap, three contributions are made. First, through literature review and field survey, two sets of key indicators for metropolitan logistics and economic development are proposed. Second, the entropy method is applied to objectively determine indicators' weights to precisely evaluate the development level of metropolitan economy and logistics. Third, an evaluation model for coordinated development is constructed to scientifically measure the coordinated development degree. Empirical studies based on the measuring model have been conducted by taking five China's metropolises as subjects. Scores can be obtained to examine which indicators are the constraints for sustained, coordinated development and which are below the average, which are of vital importance affecting governmental policy-making and investment planning.