Hierarchical Structures of National Economic Spaces: The General and the Particular

The paper explores the structures of interregional economic interactions of two countries, Japan and China, that are different in terms of the scale of physical space and, accordingly, the density of economic activity. The methodological feature of the conducted cross-country study is the focus on the question of how far we can get starting from the position ‘all objects are unique’. The assumption of the existence of functional hierarchies is tested for the national economic spaces under consideration; the backbone of spatial economic interactions that form commodity markets homogeneous in terms of locational characteristics of supply and demand are constructed; system effects generated by the established structures of interactions are determined. As part of the search for evidence of the existence of functional hierarchies, real interregional balances are compared with theoretical balances built in accordance with the assumptions of the models of successively inclusive hierarchy of W. Christaller (without counter commodity flows between hierarchical levels) and A. Losch’s economic landscape (taking into account counter commodity flows between hierarchical levels). For comparison purposes, the centrality coefficient is used, the critical value of which in W. Christaller’s model is 100%, whereas in A. Losch’s model it is about 40%. The parameters of the existing functional hierarchies (mainly, the degree of homogeneity of national economic spaces with respect to interregional links and the ‘list’ of central functions) are determined using the method of dyadic factor analysis, and the system effects at different hierarchical levels – using the method of localized division of composite blocks of multipliers of interregional balances. The study has shown that the properties of economic spaces, indeed, depend on the parameters of physical spaces, but the degree of similarity of the structures of interregional interactions in countries with different parameters of physical spaces is not zero. In particular, the estimates indicate the existence of functional hierarchy in both Japan and China (the centrality coefficient in the two cases is about 40%), general multiplicative effects and the degree of self-sufficiency of the regions of the highest levels of functional hierarchies in Japan and China are comparable, whereas the values of system effects absorbed by these regions are different