Study area and data sources

In order to determine whether there is marine resource congestion, how congestion leads to the inefficiency of the marine economy, and the spatiotemporal evolution characteristics, China's 11 coastal provinces and cities, except Hong Kong, Macao, and Taiwan, were selected for this research (Fig 1). This study focuses on the 2000–2016 time period. These provinces and cities are frequently divided from the north to the south into the Bohai Rim region, the Yangtze River Delta region, and the Pan-Pearl River Delta region. In 2016, these three regions accounted for 32,000 km total length of coastline, 13.4% of the country’s land mass, a total population of 137.46 million, and GDP of 744,127.2 million yuan (57.12% of total national GDP). Gross ocean product (GOP) was 69,693.7 million yuan, marine fisheries accounted for 4615.4 billion yuan, and marine oil and gas accounted for 868.8 billion yuan. One can find striking spatiotemporal differences, which include GOP, the ratio of GOP to GDP, per capita GOP (PCGOP), and berths for productive use above designed size (Berths).

A panel dataset of 11 regions from 2000 to 2016 is collected for analysis. Marketization index data is collected from the Marketization Index of China’s Provinces: Neri Report 2016. The rest of the data is collected from the China Marine Statistical Yearbook (State Oceanic Administration of China, 2001–2017).