The birth of edge cities in China: measuring the spillover effects of industrial parks

From its established status as a high-tech science park in 1988, Zhongguancun has been transformed from a village to China’s “Silicon Valley”. Zhongguancun’s big success has led many Chinese local governments to embrace ‘place-based’ investments and support the building of industrial parks (special economic zones, SEZ). In fact, this is a growing global trend. A recent Economist article, reported that there are more than 4,000 SEZs (industrial parks) around the world, ranging from basic export processing zones and science parks to more high-tech economic zones.