Abstract:
Rural industrial integration plays a crucial role in boosting county level economic resilience, significantly enhancing economic stability and risk management capabilities. Based on a panel data from 53 counties in Zhejiang from 2008 to 2023, this study constructs a mechanism model to analyze how rural industrial integration affects economic resilience by using the two-way fixed effects model and the intermediary test and threshold test methods. Results show that: 1) rural industrial integration strongly promotes county level economic resilience; 2) rural industrial integration enhances county level economic resilience through human capital effects; 3) rural industrial integration exerts a strongly positive influence in northeastern Zhejiang, whereas it poses a slight negative impact on the southwestern part of the province. Furthermore, its influence is markedly positive during the recovery-adjustment and shock-adaptation phases but becomes relatively weak throughout the impact resistance period; and 4) there is a single threshold effect of innovation ability on the economic resilience of counties in rural industrial integration. Accordingly, the study suggests: enhancing human capital by deepening rural industrial integration, advancing county-level technological innovation, optimizing industrial park agglomeration, and adopting localized development strategies to strengthen county level economic resilience.