Influencing factors of industrial transformation in resource-based cities: Comprehensive measurement method based on resource price distortion

The rational allocation of industrial factors in resource-based cities is a necessary condition for promoting high-quality economic development. To systematically measure the mismatch of industrial factors, this study integrates the production function model and accounting framework of Aoki (2012). The capital, labor, and energy factors are integrated into the overall measurement framework, and the factor mismatch calculation model is innovatively constructed at the city level. To effectively reflect the factor mismatch of different cities, the relative distortion coefficient of factor price is introduced to establish the relationship between the distortion of factor-use cost and effectiveness of resource allocation. The degree and direction of factor mismatch are effectively measured. This study takes China's resource-based cities as the research object. To avoid the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, data on 114 resource-based cities in China from 2003 to 2018 are selected, and 164 non-resource-based cities are used as the control group to evaluate the factors affecting the transformation of such cities. Regarding the diversity of resource-based cities in China, this study compares the characteristics of factor misallocation in these cities for different growth stages, geographical regions, and dominant resources. Finally, this study finds that on average, the cities' degree of energy misallocation is the most serious, and the degree of labor misallocation ranks second. The degree of capital misallocation ranks the lowest, but the misallocation of various factors is very different in different situations. Therefore, different types of cities should make detailed policy adjustments in various transformation directions according to the calculation results.