Measurement and spatial-temporal convergence analysis of high-quality development of service industry: new city-level evidence in China

This research constructs an index system to measure the level of high-quality development of service industry in Chinese cities at the prefecture-level, and uses the entropy-weighted TOPSIS method to measure it. The spatial convergence model is also used to analyze the spatial and temporal convergence of service industries in urban agglomerations, and to analyze their regional differences and spatial and temporal convergence characteristics. It is found that there are regional differences in the level of service industry development in Chinese cities, showing conditional beta convergence characteristics. Further, the convergence of high-quality development of service industry is decomposed in the dimension of five intrinsic factors of high-quality industrial development. It is concluded that the spatial-temporal convergence presented by the high-quality development of service industry mainly comes from industrial restructuring, industrial synergy development and industrial environment optimization. The results show that the institutional factors of “active government” and “efficient market” significantly contribute to the improvement of the quality development of urban services, after add the institutional factors of fiscal decentralization and marketization. And the research based on spatial spillover effects find that the convergence of service development among cities is mainly based on the “Yardstick Competition” of convergence. These results contribute to a comprehensive understanding of the level of quality development of China’s urban service industry, also provide a reference for policy formulation for coordinated regional development and the construction of a unified national market.