THE ECONOMIC IMPACT OF SPATIAL ORGANZATIONAL STRUCTURES ON THE PROVINCIAL BORDER-REGIONS OF CHINA

Based on the spatial organizational structures of the provincial border-regions(a border-region is one which borders two or more independent administrative regions), we build a spatial economic model for N-provincial border-regions(a N-p border-region is one which is under the jurisdiction of N provincial governments)and find that, for a given region with same geographical condition and resources endowment, the largest output of a N-p border-regional system will not exceed that ofa(N-1)-p border-regional system, i.e., F₁^*≥F₂^*…≥F_N-1^*≥F_n^*. Using the model in this paper, we present a quantitative method to calculate the economic impacts of "provincial borders" and apply it to the border-region of Shanxi, Hebei, Shangdong, and Henan provinces. The result shows that the economic potential in the border-region hasnot been efficiently exploited and that the annual gross agricultural products have decreased by 10.4% due to the 4-p borders.