佛山市产业专业化、多样化与经济韧性的关系研究

以2008年和2013年佛山市30个专业镇的数据为基础，分析其在经济冲击抵抗期的经济韧性。分析结果显示，佛山市专业镇在经济危机之后整体经济韧性恢复缓慢，专业化和相关多样化产业的发展不再有助于经济韧性的提升，而非相关多样化则相反。传统专业化的集聚优势式微，以低水平劳动密集型产业为主的专业化易于导致经济的脆弱性；相关多样化因技术含量低和协作关系弱的限制也无法发挥作用，虽然地方政府采取积极干预的手段，但效果并不明显；非相关多样化的发展则有利于培育新的产业结构，弥补受危机影响而流失的劳动力，维持地区的经济韧性。与既往研究相比，研究结果同样支持高度专业化区域经济脆弱性更大、稳健性更低的主流观点，但是传统观点一是多侧重于某个视角，并未将专业化与多样化进行对比分析；二是在多样化研究中并不区分相关多样化和非相关多样化的对经济韧性作用。结论认为，在专业镇持续转型的背景下，发展相关多样化产业不利于提高其经济韧性，而非相关多样化产业则是积极有利的，应该予以大力鼓励。专业镇作为珠三角经济发展的成功经验，其传统发展模式正面临着严峻的挑战，应积极探索建立新的多样化发展模式。

Specialization,Variety and Economic Resilience of Specialized Towns in Foshan

Since the economic reforms and opening-up, the process of rural industrialization has led to the development of a large number of specialized towns which have significant implications for the Chinese economy. However, due to their labor-intensive, export-oriented and low-tech industrial structure, the economies of the specialized towns became fragile when the financial crisis in 2008 gave rise to a turbulent global market. Specialization of the towns, which used to generate significant effects of localization economies, shows its weakness in coping with the recession after the economic crisis. The sustainable development of the specialized towns in China emerges as an important issue requiring further scholarly enquiry. The newly developed economic resilience theory has provided a valuable and useful framework to explore the development path of the specialized towns, and the article has in turn served as an important empirical study for the theory at the town level. Economic resilience is associated with the capacity to withstand or recover from economic, social, and environmental shocks to its developmental growth path, or to transit to a new, sustainable one. One of the critical factors to shape economic resilience is the attribute of the industrial structure which can define a region’s ability to adjust and adapt to shocks. Despite an ongoing debate on the role played by specialization and variety, it is increasingly agreed that a greater economic diversity is related to a greater resilience of the economies. Based on the panel data of 32 specialized towns in Foshan City and a detailed case study of Xiqiao, a town specialized in textile, this article investigates the relationship between specialization, related/unrelated variety and economic resilience. The regression results suggest that specialization and related variety exert negative effects on economic resilience, whereas unrelated variety plays an active role. Our study supports the argument, which is well-documented in the existing literature, that specialization is more likely to be stuck in negative “lock-in” with adaptation. However, the effect of related variety is not as positive as expected. For low-level labor-intensive industries, their low technology level and weak cooperation among firms have seriously prevented efficient and effective knowledge exchange which is crucial for innovation and resilient ability. The Xiqiao case further indicates that effects of specialization and related variety on economic resilience are limited even the local government has actively intervened in promoting industrial upgrading through a series of approaches such as industrial park construction, labor training, subsidies and other preferential policies. Unrelated variety is conducive to foster the development of new industries, which can help to absorb unemployed labors caused by the shocks and maintain the resilience level. Thus, the specialized towns should consider an industrial structure of greater unrelated variety to boost necessary restructuring process and to engage in new growth paths.