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Market integration and economic growth
Shiqi Lyu, Z. Chen, Simei Pan, Lianhua Liu
We usually expect connected markets to make everyone better off. But across nine Chinese cities, this study finds that stronger market integration was linked to weaker growth locally—and did little for nearby cities. Market integration is usually expected to help regions grow. But in China’s Pearl River Delta city cluster, this study finds a strikingly different pattern: integration is linked to slower growth locally, with little detectable effect on neighboring cities.