Does market-oriented land conveyance affect regional economic resilience? A spatial and mediation analysis based on 287 Chinese cities

Urban land is owned and managed by governments in China, which makes the land conveyance strategy an important policy tool for local governments to sustain a healthy economy. To understand the resource-based capacity of cities to withstand potential economic shocks, it is critically important to explore the impacts of land conveyance on economic resilience from the perspective of marketization. In this study, we measured economic resilience and market-oriented land conveyance in 287 Chinese cities using the unemployment rate and the proportion of the land conveyed in the form of tender, auction, and listing, separately. We employed static and dynamic panel models, the spatial Durbin model, and the mediation model to investigate the direct, spatial, and indirect impacts of land conveyance on regional economic resilience. Our results indicate that market-oriented land conveyance exerts a positive impact on employment-induced resilience. However, the impacts from neighboring cities reverse to negative impacts on local resilience. Specifically, land conveyance positively influences economic resilience indirectly through a variety of channels, including secondary industry and capital markets. This study provides city-level evidence on the impacts of a land use policy on employment-induced resilience and sheds light on policy implications for promoting economic resilience in a period of frequent shocks.