Research on the impact of the reform of national pilot zones for integrated urban-rural development on the resilience of county economies

This paper, based on the panel data of 877 districts and counties from 2005 to 2024, takes the reform of the national urban-rural integration development pilot zone as a quasi-natural experiment and uses the different-in-differences method to investigate the impact of the reform on the resilience of county economies. The results show that the reform significantly enhances the resilience of county-level economies, and the effect is more prominent in counties with a better digital foundation, a high level of e-commerce and strong innovation capabilities. The higher the quality of urban-rural integration, the stronger the enhancing effect. The capabilities of resistance and recovery, adaptation and regulation, as well as transformation and development have all been enhanced, with the transformation capability being the most remarkable. The reform also has a positive spatial spillover effect, driving the coordinated improvement of neighboring counties.