Abstract:Under the influence of industrial upgrading, whether may the regional marketization process change? Through theoretical analysis, this paper argues that industrial upgrading can affect the marketization process by optimizing resource allocation, expanding division of labor and strengthening policy support. Based on what mentioned above, we use the panel data of 31 provinces from 1998 to 2014 to make the empirical analysis, and the empirical results show that the industrial upgrading can influence the marketization process of China, that the qualitative change of industrial upgrading represented by the improvement of total factor productivity has obvious effects on the marketization process, while the quantitative change of industrial upgrading represented by the increase of the proportion of output value of secondary industry and tertiary industry also can affect the marketization process, and that the role of the tertiary industry is higher than that of the secondary industry. And the results also show that other control variables, such as urbanization level, degree of open trade, and the independent innovation ability, have different regional influence on marketization process. Under the background of replacing old growth drivers with new ones, industrial upgrading will become the norm in the development of regional economy. According to the related conclusions of this paper, the regional policymaking should consider the impact of industrial upgrading on the marketization process so as to better achieve the target that market plays the decisive role in the allocation of resources.