Measurement of Coordination Degree between Economy and Logistics in Hebei Province, China, Based on Fractional Grey Model (1, 1)

Modern logistics is the supporting industry of the national economy. The synergy between logistics and economy has been highlighted in northern China’s Hebei Province. This study measures the coordination degree between economy and logistics in Hebei, drawing on the grey system theory. Specifically, the entropy weight-grey correlation method was introduced to evaluate the interplay between economic and logistics factors in Hebei between 2011 and 2020. The evaluation suggests that private car ownership has the most significant correlation with the economy and that the total retail sales of social consumer goods are the leading impactor of logistics. Next, the fractional grey model (FGM) (1, 1) was employed to forecast the economic and logistics indices of Hebei in the next five years. The forecast results show that FGM (1, 1) achieved a higher prediction precision than the conventional GM (1, 1) and discrete grey model (DGM) (1, 1). Based on the original data and forecasted results, the coupling coordination degree (CCD) model was adopted to compute the CCD between the economy and logistics in Hebei during 2011–2025. It was calculated that the coupling coordination exhibited a continuous upward trend. From 2011 to 2025, the CCD between economy and logistics in Hebei evolves from moderate incoordination, mild incoordination, weak incoordination, and weak coordination, all the way to moderate coordination. In the light of the analysis results, several suggestions were presented to promote the coordinated development between economy and logistics in Hebei.