How does quality regional growth affect land resources dependence in China? Evidence based on spatial Durbin panel models

There is a great urgency worldwide to pursue a multi-objective growth while reducing the excessive consumption of resources and environment. As a sustainable pathway, quality regional growth is expected to alleviate the constraint of limited land resources. In response, this paper investigates the spatial effects of quality growth on land resources dependence. It contributes to the existing literature by proposing a multidimensional measure for quality regional growth, applies a land-use intensity index to estimate a city's dependence of land resources, and uses spatial Durbin panel models with optional spatial weight matrices to address the relations between quality growth and land resources dependence in 290 Chinese cities. The results from multiple strict and robust tests confirm that spatial-fixed Durbin panel models with the matrices involving both economic and geographic linkages best fit the data in this study. The results indicate that quality growth tends to be more spatially polarized, and it exerts a positive effect on land use dependency. Spatial spillover effects exist more in land resources utilization rather than quality growth in neighboring cities. Land resources dependence in Central region were more likely to be affected by local quality growth and neighboring land resources utilization. The indirect component of total effects of quality growth is dominant for all regions. Our study recommends policies that can benefit regional sustainability but reduce land resources dependence.