The spatial pattern of MNCs headquarters in the context of developmental state: The case of Beijing

The spatial pattern of multinational corporations (MNC)’ headquarters (HQs) plays an essential role in the organization of a world city. Triggered by strategies to decentralize non-capital function from the core area, the recent restructuring of the Beijing metropolitan is particularly concerning. By bridging the theory of paradigm of world cities and industry spatial agglomeration, this study provides an institutional perspective for estimating the spatial pattern of HQs in the context of a globalized economy and developmental states. We implement dynamic spatial analysis and Geographically Weighted Poisson Regression on a data set of HQs of different capital forms: central state-owned enterprises (CSOE), non-central state-owned enterprises (non-CSOE), private enterprises (PE), and foreign enterprises (FE). The findings are: 1) The dominant part of HQs tend to concentrate in the central area of Beijing metropolitan despite suburbanization, while only FEs show certain decentralization pattern; 2) A hierarchy of spatial centralization was found, from CSOEs to non-CSOEs, and then PEs and FEs, which is an exact reflection of institutional orders; 3) Only CSOEs are likely to locate approximately to central ministries, while the agglomeration of other HQ types is strongly influenced by the grouping of advanced producer services, indicating the synchronicity of state-public MNC alliance and MNC-capital networks. This makes Beijing a distinct state-centered political—bureaucratic world city mixed with certain features of market-centered bourgeois world cities. It is necessary to account for the administrative cost when considering a relocation of headquarters out of the Beijing metropolitan. •Institutional perspective is provided to estimate the spatial pattern of MNC HQs.•Geographically Weighted Poisson Regression and big data of POI are employed in the analysis.•Administrative orders are reflected in the hierarchical centralization of HQs of different capital forms.•Alliance of state-MNC and networks of MNC-capital APS coexist in Beijing.•Beijing is a distinct SPW that also shows features of MBW world city.