Chapter 5 Empirical Tests for the Development of Regional Marine
5.1 The Selection of Variables and Data Source
5.1.1 The selection of variables
In the analysis of economic growth, GDP is used to measure the development of the national economy, so here we take GOP as the measurement of marine economic growth. According to the literature reviews, there are four factors taken into consideration that are labor, capital, science and technology, and the environment.
Labor plays an essential role in marine economic development. As a major population country, there is a comparative advantage in China. For instance, labor plays a dominant role in the coastal tourism industry and marine fishery industry.
If there were no labor, the natural resources couldn’t be explored which could not contribute to the economic development. Analyzing the marine economic growth of China, labor is regarded as an important factor. Some researchers choose the absolute data of the number of ocean-related employed shown in <Table 22>. In this study, we also choose the ocean-related employed as the labor factor, which is an indicator to represent the labor situation of the marine industry fully. The ocean-related employed is not just about the professionals in the marine industry, but the people engaged in marine or related marine industry.
<Table 22> Labor as a factor in previous studies
Labor
the number of ocean-related employed Zhao, X. et al. (2012) the number of ocean-related employed Cao, W. et al. (2015) the number of ocean-related employed Feng, D. (2015) the number of ocean-related employed Peng ,Y.F. et al. (2017)
Capital refers to the support of marine economic development in this study.
Most of the researchers, studying factors influencing the development of the marine industry, take the number of marine research projects as capital factor shown in <Table 23>. In general, the capital refers to the investment, due to the lack of data on this, we consider marine research projects in this study, at the same time we choose the funds of marine research. This is the support from the government, and marine research projects are the output of that capital, and the marine research funds are the input.
<Table 23> Capital as a factor in previous studies
Capital
the number of marine research projects Chang, Y.M. (2011) the number of marine research projects Li, W. (2014)
the number of marine research projects Peng, Y.F. et al. (2017) Source: collected by the author according to literature review in Chapter 2.
Technology, as the tool, can drive the development of the marine industry. Due to the uniqueness of the marine economy, the exploration of the marine industry, the upgrade of the marine industry and the investigation of the marine economy all needs the support of technology. Some scholars choose the number of research projects, some select the professionals in the marine industry, and some choose the funds of marine R&D shown in <Table 24>.
<Table 24> Technology as a factor in previous studies
Technology
the number of professionals on marine industry Chang, Y.M. (2011) the number of professionals in marine science
and technology
Zhao, X. et al. (2012)
the number of professionals on marine industry Li, W. (2014) the number of research projects Cao, W. et. al (2015) the funds of marine R&D Feng, D. (2015) the number of professional on marine industry Peng, Y.F. (2017) the proportion of marine professionals Wang, Z.Y. (2017) Source: collected by the author according to literature review in Chapter 2.
In this study, the technological factor is equal to the number of marine patents which are the results of marine science and technology. Some researchers select the professionals of the marine industry, as the technological factor. However, to avoid the multicollinearity with the labor factor, we take the number of marine patents as the technological factor.
The environment is the base condition for marine economic development. It is a disaster for a marine organism to live in a destroyed marine environment. Even to change the marine environment may lead to the changes in marine resources, which will influence the marine economic development indirectly. Some researchers propose the number of pollution treatment projects or marine-type nature reserves as an environmental factor.
<Table 25> Environment as a factor in previous studies
Environment
the number of pollution treatments projects Cao,W. et al, (2015) the number of pollution treatments projects Peng, Y.F. et al. (2017) the number of marine-type nature reserves Wang, Z.Y. et al. (2017) Source: collected by the author according to literature review in Chapter 2.
Most of the marine pollution comes from the land, especially for the industrial wastewater discharge. Therefore, we consider the regional pollution treatments projects as the factor of the environment in this study. In addition, the number of marine-type nature reserves is also taken as the environmental factor, which refers to regional marine protection.
5.1.2 Data source
This study collects ten years of data between 2007 and 2016 from the China Marine Statistical Yearbook about the eleven coastal provinces and cities in China.
The pooling includes 110 observations which are in the panel data. The panel data consists of the cross-section, time, and variables. In this study, we analyze the eleven coastal provinces and cities in China in ten years with six independent variables. To build a model of the panel data we can obtain more information and deeper analyses of the relationship between dependent variables and independent variables.
Compared with the previous studies of marine economic development, most choose absolute data to do the regression estimation. However, we choose the change rate data of selected variables to do the regression estimation. Because development is a dynamic trend, analyzing the development of the regional marine industry with the change rate data can show the trend of changes which is more appropriate for this study. Therefore, the variables of this study are presented in <Table 26>.
<Table 26> Selection of variables
Type of
variables Variable Explanation
Dependent variable
GROP
It is the regional gross ocean products representing the development of regional marine economy. Here is the change rate data of regional GOP.
⊿GROP
GROP of Primary Marine Industry
The change rate data of regional GOP
of primary marine industry ⊿RPMI
GROP of Secondary Marine Industry
The change rate data of regional GOP
of secondary marine industry ⊿RSMI
GROP of Tertiary Marine Industry
The change rate data of regional GOP
of tertiary marine industry ⊿RTMI
International Competency
The change rate data of regional
exports ⊿REX
Independent variable
Labor The change rate data of regional ocean-
related employed ⊿EMP
Capital
(1) The change rate data of regional
marine research projects. ⊿PRO (2) The change rate data of regional
marine research funds ⊿FUD
Technology The change rate data of regional marine
patents ⊿PAT
Environment
(1) The change rate data of regional
marine pollution treatments projects ⊿PTP (2) The change rate data of regional
marine-type nature reserves ⊿MRS Source: made by the author.
Collecting original data from China Marine Statistical Yearbook, we use the change rate data and make the descriptive statistical analysis of the data set shown in <Table 27>.
<Table 27> Description statistical analysis
Minimum Maximum Mean Standard
deviation
⊿GROP -.34 .46 .1297 .1031
⊿RPMI -.20 .98 .1359 .1803
⊿RSMI -.34 .59 .1125 .1519
⊿RTMI -.87 .36 .1473 .0946
⊿REX -.02 11.66 .3706 1.6469
⊿EMP -.02 .06 .0205 .0175
⊿PRO -.79 3.35 .1379 .4945
⊿FUD -.86 12.10 .5642 1.9541
⊿PAT -1.00 37.00 .5468 3.7445
⊿PTP -.96 24.94 .1444 2.4208
⊿MRS -.67 3.00 .0953 .48135