Spatial patterns and the changing law of spatial and temporal factors in the economic quality of China's Silk Road Economic Belt

It is important to quantitatively assess the level of high-quality development of the Silk Road Economic Belt and the global economy. In the past, many scholars have conducted relevant studies on high-quality economic development, but little attention has been given to China's Silk Road Economic Belt, and there is a lack of dynamic quantitative research on long time series. Based on these findings, we constructed an evaluation index system for the high-quality economic development of China's Silk Road Economic Belt based on statistical data using geographic information technology such as the Moran index and econometric methods such as the entropy weight method and the Mann–Kendall test. Then, we quantitatively depicted the spatial and temporal evolution of the high-quality economic development of China's Silk Road Economic Belt from 2007 to 2021. The results of the study showed that over time, the overall level of high-quality economic development in China's Silk Road Economic Belt and the scores of all dimensions showed a significant upwards trend from 2007 to 2021. Spatially, the level of high-quality economic development in China's Silk Road Economic Belt shows a spatial distribution pattern of being lowest in the North, followed by that in the South, and that in the Centre. Furthermore, there is a clustering distribution of high-quality economic development in China's Silk Road Economic Belt, and there is a spatial spillover effect; science and technology expenditures and the total amount of imports and exports are also crucial in promoting high-quality development of the region's economy and accelerating spatial spillovers from the Silk Road Economic Belt. The results of this study can provide an important scientific basis for the high-quality and sustainable development of the Silk Road Economic Belt in China, as well as be an important reference for related studies in other similar regions in the world.