| The construction of high-speed railway has been a major project of China’s transportation infrastructure over the past decade.By the end of 2017,China’s high-speed rail operating mileage had reached 25,000 kilometers.In the global high-speed rail market,China Railway Rolling Stock Corporation(CRRC)accounts for the highest market share(nearly 70% of the world’s high-speed rail market),with a high-speed rail transportation network of four vertical lines and four horizontal lines that has basically be built.By 2025,the operating mileage of China’s high-speed railway will reach 38,000 kilometers,forming a high-speed rail transportation network with eight vertical lines and eight horizontal lines.The construction of high-speed railway has fundamentally improved China’s transportation infrastructure,significantly reduced the labor’s commuting cost and search costs,lowered the transportation costs of enterprises,enhanced the transportation efficiency and the effectiveness of resource allocation,expanded the scale of regional markets,promoted the spread of various factors of production and their knowledge and technology among regions,and produced a positive effect on economic growth.At the same time,the ties between regions will be strengthened with the improvement of transportation infrastructure such as high-speed rail,the flow of factors between regions will make the division of labor fine and professional,and the ever-concentrating industries will be conducive to the sound,rapid and high-quality development of the national economy.However,the existing studies focus more on the impact of high-speed rail construction on the spatial concentration of manufacturing,productive service and other sectors,and little on the impact of high-speed rail construction on the spatial pattern of the real estate sector.The biggest difference between the real estate industry and the manufacturing industry is the fixed location and immovable products.How does the construction of high-speed rail affect the spatial pattern change of the real estate industry? Does China’s real estate macro-control regional policy need to beadjusted? As these problems have not yet been systematically studied,this paper is of important academic theoretical value and practical significance.In this paper,the real estate investment and development amount and the number of real estate employment are used to represent the real estate investment scale,which indirectly reflects the scale of the real estate industry.The national data table for the number of runs of trains for 2007-2017 is obtained from Jipin Timetable and Shengming Timetable,and the running distance,rate,running time,one-way running frequency and two-way running frequency of the G-train and D-train and C-train between two cities from departure to arrival through China’s high-speed rail are comprehensively sorted out so as to construct the evaluation index of the impact of high-speed railway construction-node strength and market potential of cities that are accessible via high-speed railway.With node strength and market potential as the main explanatory variables,through theoretical mechanism analysis and statistical analysis,common panel data model and spatial panel data model and other empirical measurement research,the spatial effect of high-speed rail construction on real estate investment is systematically analyzed and demonstrated,and the corresponding regional policy ideas of real estate macro-control are put forward.The main conclusions of this paper are as follows:First,the mechanism of the spatial effect of high-speed rail construction on real estate investment is: due to the location strengthening effect,market structure effect and factor integration effect of high-speed rail on the real estate industry,the construction and opening of high-speed rail has significantly improved the intra-regional and inter-regional transportation infrastructure of the cities where high-speed rail is opened,as the high-speed rail network is increasingly improved and the transportation time cost and transaction cost are continuously decreasing.If the demand for goods in the region increased due to the improvement of transportation infrastructure is greater than the demand decreased due to tax revenue,the improvement of transportation infrastructure in the region will attract enterprises to the region.The greater the improvement of regional transportation infrastructure is,the better the traffic conditions between regions will be.If the infrastructure in therelatively poor region is improved,enterprises outside the region will flow to this region due to the high demand generated in the region.Thanks to the development of trans-regional transportation infrastructure,it is easier for the industry to re-select the geographical location of enterprises through the new transportation infrastructure.The utility of real estate investment has a positive correlation with factors such as population,economy,and market potential.If the development of high-speed rail leads to the spatial concentration of population and economy in the core cities(big cities along the high-speed rail),expanding the market potential of the concentrated areas(core cities)and causing rises in housing prices and rents,it will result in the increase of real estate investment in core cities,which is manifested in the concentration of real estate investment and industrial scale of real estate in core cities.On the contrary,if the development of high-speed rail leads to the spatial overflow of population,economy and market potential,causing rises in housing prices and rents in small-and medium-sized cities along the high-speed rail,it will result in the increase of real estate investment in small-and medium-sized cities along the high-speed rail,which is manifested in the overflow of real estate investment and industrial scale of real estate from core cities to small-and medium-sized cities.Concentration and overflow is a dynamic process.When concentration in the core cities reaches a certain extent,the core cities will face the bottleneck of scarcity of land resources and will inevitably overflow to small-and medium-sized cities.At a certain stage of real estate development,concentration in core cities and overflow from small-and medium-sized cities may occur simultaneously.As Krugman(1999)pointed out,the impact of reduction in transportation cost on the industry is twofold,which not only promotes the concentration of industries,but also disperses them.Second,it is found through the statistical analysis of the observed data that firstly,the spatial heterogeneity of China’s real estate industry has weakened during the eleven years from 2007 to 2017.Both the real estate investment and development amount and the number of real estate employment have been gradually balanced when calculated by province.Secondly,the node strength index of cities,which represents the location strengthening effect due to the opening of high-speed rail,and the marketpotential index of cities,which represents the market structure effect due to the opening of high-speed rail,are both significantly and positively correlated with the completed real estate development investment and the number of real estate employment,which confirms the fact from the actual empirical data that high-speed rail hub cities serve as an impetus to real estate investment.Third,according to the three-sector model of regional economy in real estate economics,there should be a positive correlation between urban population size,manufacturing size and real estate industry.Statistical model studies show that the real estate investment amount and the number of real estate employment are significantly positively correlated with the population size and manufacturing size of the cities with high-speed rail,thus verifying the theoretical analysis on the changes in the spatial pattern of real estate investment caused by high-speed rail construction in Chapter III of this paper.Node strength,market potential,urban population size and manufacturing size can be taken as explanatory variables and control variables respectively,and panel data model and spatial panel data model can be constructed to further study the spatial effect of high-speed rail development on real estate investment.Third,on the basis of the three-sector model of regional economy in real estate economics,the high-speed rail factor is added to the model to build a common panel data model.Six models including mixed regression,cluster standard error regression,fixed effect,bidirectional fixed effect,random effect and heteroscedasticity correction regression are used to estimate and screen the model effects respectively.The robustness of the empirical results is tested by changing independent variable indexes.The panel data model studies show that the completed real estate investment amount and the number of real estate employment are positively correlated with the node strength and market potential of the cities with high-speed rail,which indicates that the node strength and market potential of these cities analyzed from the network structure have a significant positive impact on the real estate investment and development.In addition,the completed real estate investment and the number of real estate employment are also significantly positively related to the size of urban population and manufacturing industry,thus further verifying some of the mechanismin Chapter III,i.e.,the real estate investment utility is positively correlated with factors such as population,economy,and market potential.The development of high-speed rail has led to the spatial concentration of population and economy in cities along the high-speed rail,expanding market potential and promoting the concentration of real estate investment in cities along the high-speed rail.At the same time,the results of observation and statistical analysis in Chapter IV are also verified from the econometric model.The high-speed rail factor should be an important explanatory variable of the spatial effect model of real estate investment.Fourth,this paper uses SARAR spatial econometric model and dynamic spatial autoregressive model for empirical studies on spatial panel data model,and uses Spatial Dubin Model(SDM)for robustness test.Through model analysis and calculation,it is proved that high-speed rail operation has a spatial concentration and spatial overflow effect on real estate investment,which verifies the conclusion of the mechanism research on spatial effect of high-speed rail operation on real estate investment in Chapter III of this paper.Under the influence of high-speed rail,whether the spatial effect of real estate investment is manifested by concentration or overflow depends on the "network effect" and "local effect" of high-speed rail transportation infrastructure.The improvement of transportation infrastructure due to the opening of high-speed rail has a "network effect",i.e.,the increase in local real estate investment and employment will help to promote the flow of people and trade,thus further promoting the increase in real estate investment and employment in other neighboring regions.At the same time,the improvement of transportation infrastructure due to by the opening of high-speed rail also has a "local effect",i.e.,the increase in the completed amount of local real estate investment and development will attract the factors of manpower and capital from the surrounding areas,thus producing adverse effects on the real estate investment and development in the prefecture-level cities in the surrounding areas.If the "local effect" of the improvement of local transportation infrastructure is less than the "network effect",the positive overflow effect of the improvement of high-speed rail transportation infrastructure in adjacent areas on the completed amount of local real estateinvestment and development will exceed the negative overflow effect,which is manifested by the overflow of real estate investment and real estate employment from core cities to small-and medium-sized cities.If the "local effect" of the improvement of local transportation infrastructure is greater than the "network effect",the negative overflow effect of the improvement of high-speed rail transportation infrastructure in adjacent areas on the completed amount of local real estate investment and development will exceed the positive overflow effect,which is manifested by the concentration of real estate investment and real estate employment scale in core cities.This is a dynamic process.As Krugman(1999)pointed out,the impact of reduction in transportation cost on the industry is two-sided,not only promoting the concentration of industries,but also dispersing them.The development of high-speed rail is promoting the transformation of the real estate industry from concentration to decentralization,thus changing the spatial pattern of the real estate industry.Further studies have found that the real estate industry is different from industries such as manufacturing and productive service.First,the real estate industry is highly dependent on land,and the general land expenditure accounts for about 30%of the total cost of real estate investment and development.Although the market potential of core cities such as first-tier and second-tier cities is greater than that of small-and medium-sized cities,with the concentration of industries and population,the scarcity of land resources is becoming increasingly serious,leading to sharp rises in land costs and in the total cost of real estate,forcing some real estate enterprises to take land and develop in small-and medium-sized cities with good development conditions along the high-speed rail,and making the real estate industry become the first to spread to and concentrate in some small-and medium-sized cities with excellent conditions.Second,the core-edge theory holds that product differentiation is a powerful driving force for concentration.However,the product differentiation in the real estate industry is far less significant than that in industries such as manufacturing and productive service.On the contrary,product homogenization is a general trend in the real estate industry.Therefore,the price competition of real estate products caused by the development of high-speed rail and the reduction of transportation andtransaction costs is intensified,which is difficult to alleviate through product differentiation.It is also an important reason why some real estate enterprises have chosen to develop small and medium-sized cities with good development conditions along the high-speed rail line.Therefore,the rapid development of China’s high-speed rail has generally promoted the transformation of the spatial pattern of the real estate industry from concentration to decentralization.Fifth,according to the research conclusion,we can get the following policy implications: First,the real estate industry is an important pillar industry and people’s livelihood industry in China.As China’s urbanization enters its middle and late stages,the macro-control policy of real estate should also be adjusted appropriately.We should make good use of the opportunity of high-speed rail development to change the spatial pattern of real estate investment,select some key cities in the West where the state should give priority support to the real estate industry and supporting industrial entities(including manufacturing industry and tertiary industry),combine macro-control of real estate with backward regional development,create regional economic growth points in the West,and give full play to the role of high-speed rail and other transportation infrastructure construction in promoting cross-regional social and economic development.The second is to change the way the state regulates real estate in cities classified into tier 1,2,3 and 4,study and formulate policies according to urban agglomeration regulation to ensure the balance between total supply and total demand of urban agglomeration,and to formulate integrated policies and measures to regulate the balance between supply and demand of real estate in core big cities and marginal small-and medium-sized cities.The third is to strengthen macro-planning and control of real estate investment overflow in small-and medium-sized cities along the high-speed rail line,and actively guide real industries such as manufacturing and tertiary industries to gather and develop in a matching way in these cities.The fourth is to adjust and expand the strategic focus of the development of the national housing rental market.In addition to vigorously developing the housing rental market in the core big cities where the contradiction between housing supply and demand is prominent,we should strengthen the research and formulation of the housing rentalmarket development policies in small-and medium-sized cities with superior tourism and leisure resources along the high-speed rail line,provide rental housing services for migratory-bird-type residential groups,reduce the excessive occupation and waste of land resources and housing vacancy in these cities due to a large number of migratory-bird-type house purchases,improve the housing utilization efficiency and save land resources.Sixth,the main innovations of this paper include: 1.Guided by the theories of new economic geography,regional economics and real estate economics,this paper systematically studies how the development of high-speed rail affects the spatial pattern change of China’s real estate industry and its internal mechanism both theoretically and empirically,and puts forward the idea of adjusting the regional policies for macro-control of China’s real estate industry,making up for the deficiencies of the existing studies.2.This paper explores the frequency of high-speed trains through high-speed rail schedules,calculates the node strength and market potential of the high-speed rail network as the core explanatory variables of high-speed rail impacts,and builds a series of econometric models based on this,thus deepening the understanding of high-speed rail impacts and making innovations in methodology.This paper is only a preliminary result of the study on the spatial effect of high-speed rail construction on real estate investment,and there are still many problems that need to be further studied in the future.For instance,in the future,it is necessary to further divide cities into different classes and types,and study the spatial effect of real estate investment and development in cities with high-speed rail stations.It is necessary to further study the problem of "excessive overflow" of real estate investment in some small-and medium-sized cities along the line as well as the possible financial risks and preventive measures.It is also necessary to further study the possible net "negative overflow" of real estate investment to some small-and medium-sized cities along the line and its impact on the economic development of such cities.This is the direction that the author will gravitate towards in the future. |
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