IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/growch/v56y2025i3ne70044.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Relatedness‐Based Industrial Exit Paths and Economic Complexity: Evidence From Chinese Regions

Author

Listed:
  • Wei Li
  • Yiming Fu
  • Zhen Liu
  • Ying Wu

Abstract

Industrial exit plays a critical role in shaping regional industrial dynamics. Evolutionary economic geography studies often use co‐occurrence and density methods to assess the likelihood of related and unrelated industries exiting a region. However, these traditional methods lack the ability to quantitatively distinguish related from unrelated exiting industries. This paper addresses this gap by introducing a novel quantitative method for differentiating related and unrelated exiting industries. We then explore the correlation between (un)related exits and economic complexity using data from the China Customs Database (2000–2012). The findings suggest that related exits dominate China's industrial exit paths, with relatively few unrelated exits, and the disparity between them is widening. Second, a significant and positive correlation between related exits and economic complexity is observed, while unrelated exits display a significant and negative correlation. Third, differences emerge between related and unrelated exits across various sectors and regions in China. The novel method for distinguishing related and unrelated exit industries holds the potential for application in other countries and regions, contributing to a more precise understanding of the patterns of regional industrial exit.

Suggested Citation

  • Wei Li & Yiming Fu & Zhen Liu & Ying Wu, 2025. "Relatedness‐Based Industrial Exit Paths and Economic Complexity: Evidence From Chinese Regions," Growth and Change, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 56(3), September.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:growch:v:56:y:2025:i:3:n:e70044
    DOI: 10.1111/grow.70044
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/grow.70044
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/grow.70044?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bla:growch:v:56:y:2025:i:3:n:e70044. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/journal.asp?ref=0017-4815 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.