High-quality development in China: Measurement system, spatial pattern, and improvement paths

Improving the quality of economic and social development is the common goal of all countries. Since China is at the inflection point shifting from high-speed development to high-quality development (HQD), a systematic study on China's HQD evaluation system is crucial. This research elaborated the connotation of HQD in the context of China and established a five dimension indicator system of HQD at the prefecture-city level. Then, we calculated the HQD indexes of 301 prefectures and explored the spatial pattern and development lagging regions. The results show that significant regional differences exist in the HQD comprehensive index, the coordination index, and the proposed five dimension indexes. The average values of people's livelihood and innovation efficiency are relatively low, which are the weak aspects of HQD. Economic scale, urban land scale, and urban population scale are positively correlated with the HQD comprehensive index. One hundred sixty prefectures with problems in HQD are identified. The implications for accelerating HQD involve improving the incentive mechanism, adopting pertinent strategies that fit the regional conditions, and prioritizing the Yellow River Basin , Northeast China, and Yunnan-Guangxi region. • We established an indicator system to evaluate high-quality development. • The high-quality development level of China's prefecture level is evaluated. • We reveal the regional differences of high-quality development. • 160 cities were identified as lagging regions of high-quality development.