Metropolitan economic development can yield more logistics demands and
provide stronger financial support for logistics industry, and logistics development in
turn can boost economic growth by reducing transaction cost and increasing economic
operation efficiency. Their coordinated development between the two can better promote
sustainable, steady and fast growth of metropolitan economy. However, little
quantitative research has been conducted on their mutual relations. To fill this gap,
three contributions are made. First, through literature review and field survey, two sets
of key indicators for metropolitan logistics and economic development are proposed.
Second, the entropy method is applied to objectively determine indicators’ weights to
precisely evaluate the development level of metropolitan economy and logistics. Third,
an evaluation model for coordinated development is constructed to scientifically measure
the coordinated development degree. Empirical studies based on the measuring
model have been conducted by taking five China’s metropolises as subjects. Scores
can be obtained to examine which indicators are the constraints for sustained, coordinated
development and which are below the average, which are of vital importance
affecting governmental policy-making and investment planning