Spatial attribution and policy design of rural entrepreneurship: Evidence from Anhui Province in China

Rural entrepreneurship is a key way to combat rural decline and promote the revitalization of rural areas and their sustainability, and also a key area of research in agricultural and rural geography, economics, and management. We combined spatial econometrics models such as spatial clustering, cold and hot spot analysis, geographical weighted regression and Geodetector to carry out empirical research on geographical distribution of rural entrepreneurship in Anhui province, in an attempt to provide scientific basis for rural policy design, spatial planning and evidence-based decision-making. The findings showed an increasing trend of the spatial heterogeneity and autocorrelation of rural entrepreneurship in Anhui, with geographic clustering of high, medium and low values as well as cold and hot spots. And the diversification of rural entrepreneurship changes led to a very complex driving mechanism for the generation and evolution of rural entrepreneurship spatial patterns, and the factors showed significant spatial and composite effects. The enlightening value of the analysis results lies in the fact that rural entrepreneurship management not only needs to delineate geographical zones and design differentiated policies, but also needs to jointly build rural entrepreneurship alliances in similar or adjacent areas to integrate regional entrepreneurial resources. In addition, rural entrepreneurship management should be guided according to the situation, and policy design should take into account both quantity and speed control, with establishment of policy combinations based on the spatial and composite effects of different factors.