Spatio-Temporal Evolution and Development Constraints of High-Quality Economic Development in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area: Implications for Sustainable Regional Development

The Guangdong–Hong Kong–Macao Greater Bay Area (GBA) provides an important case for examining high-quality economic development and its implications for sustainable and coordinated regional development. However, systematic assessments of its evolutionary patterns and development constraints remain insufficient. This study employs the fixed-base range entropy-weight method, standard deviational ellipse, spatial Markov chain, and obstacle degree model to examine the spatio-temporal evolution characteristics and obstacle factors of high-quality economic development in the GBA from 2012 to 2024. The results indicate the following: (1) Temporally, the overall high-quality economic development index of the GBA and its 11 constituent cities exhibited a sustained upward trend. Peripheral cities such as Zhaoqing and Jiangmen experienced significantly higher growth rates than core cities such as Shenzhen and Hong Kong, demonstrating a pattern of relative catching-up among peripheral cities. (2) Spatially, high-quality development displayed a distinct “core–periphery” gradient structure, with Hong Kong, Macao, and Shenzhen forming stable high-value clusters, while Zhaoqing and Jiangmen remained low-value areas. The development center gradually shifted northwestward, indicating a gradual shift in the development center toward peripheral areas. Moreover, urban development exhibited spatial correlation characteristics. (3) Regarding the obstacle factors, the sharing, openness, and economic efficiency dimensions showed relatively higher obstacle degrees. At the indicator layer, the dominant obstacle factors included per capita expenditure on social security and employment, per capita public healthcare expenditure, and per capita public education expenditure.