Measurement of Urban Economic Gravity of China's Three Major Agglomerations and Its Implications for the Coordinated Development of the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei Region

This paper adopts the perspective of urban economic linkage and the modified urban economic gravity model to conduct a comparative analysis of the economic gravity among cities in China’s three major urban agglomerations, including the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region, the Yangtze River Delta, and the Pearl River Delta. The results show that, despite the ever-tightening economic linkages among cities in the urban agglomerations, the development of the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region falls behind that of the Yangtze River Delta and the Pearl River Delta in terms of coordination, closeness, and balance. The economic linkages among cities in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region are not as cohesive as they could be and display a significant "siphon effect" through Beijing and Tianjin as well as a prominently unidirectional economic flow. This study suggests that efforts should be put into directing the orderly flow of resources from Beijing and Tianjin to cities in Hebei and promoting a balanced economic flow among cities, thus facilitating the coordination of regional development.