China Urban Agglomeration Efficiency Research Based on Urban Integration

With the continuous development of economic globalization and regionalization, China's regional economies are undergoing great changes, with urban agglomeration being the key to the fast development of China's economy. This paper conducts an empirical analysis of China's 10 major urban agglomerations' economic efficiency in the years 2009-2013 by applying DEA method and related panel data, aiming to reveal the changing trends of urban agglomerations' economic efficiency and at the same time, analyze its influencing factors. The research shows that China's urban agglomerations are developing with obvious characteristics of integration, such as large-scale and collaboration. The comprehensive economic efficiency of China's urban agglomerations has been a rising tendency; the gaps between agglomerations are being widened further and over 60% of them have the potential to scale up in the near future. In addition, the average resource utilization rate of agglomerations is about 90% and labor redundancy is the most serious problem. It is also concluded that eastern urban agglomerations are generally better at integrated management, resource allocation and utilization, and large-scale gathering capability, followed by those in central and then western areas.