| Under the goal of high-quality economic development,the improvement of total factor productivity is regarded as an important measure to improve the quality and efficiency of the national economy.And then,the reduce of resource misallocation is the key way to improve total factor productivity.Resource misallocation refers to the deviation of the actual allocation efficiency from the effective allocation state when the allocation of production factors is distorted.It is essentially a loss of efficiency or a waste of resources.In China,resource misallocation is multi-dimensional,embodied in different dimensions such as between enterprises,departments,and regions.Among them,the resource misallocation between enterprises or between departments has been widely regarded as an important factor hindering economic development and the increase of total factor productivity.In contrast,resource misallocation between regions is often easily overlooked.At the same time,the competitive development strategy of local governments has led to prominent market segmentation,which severely restricted the spontaneous flow and re-allocation of labor factors between regions.This caused the distortion of the allocation of labors among regions,that is,the spatial misallocation of labors,and eventually decreased the production efficiency and the welfare of workers in the entire region.Therefore,in the current stage of high-quality economic development,reducing the spatial misallocation of labor factors may be a more efficient means of economic growth than technological innovation.The current spatial misallocation of labor factors in China is mainly due to market segmentation caused by institutional distortions.However,market segmentation often needs to be resolved through long-term institutional reforms,and cannot be eliminated in the short term.In this context,transportation infrastructure,as a comprehensive goal,can serve as an effective policy tool in the transitional phase of institutional reform.Different from targeted reform measures,the transportation infrastructure network is a comprehensive development measure involving social people’s livelihood,regional economy,national security,etc.It is a relatively exogenous policy on the spatial allocation of production factors.Especially in the context of the rapid development of high-speed rail in China,the space-time compression effect brought by HSR will help weaken and avoid the negative effects of market segmentation on the re-allocation of factor.To this end,this article systematically examines the causal relationship between high-speed rail and the spatial misallocation of labor factors between cities,and attempts to explore effective measures to ensure high-quality economic development during the transitional period of institutional reform of China.Based on the spatial equilibrium theory and the fact of regional market segmentation in China,this paper not only examines the impact of high-speed rail on the spatial misallocation of labors between cities,but also examines the influence mechanism from three aspects: relative location of cities,labor mobility,and enterprise migration.At the same time,this article examines the heterogeneous effects of highspeed rail on the spatial allocation of labors under different conditions.Since the goal of reducing spatial misallocation is to develop regional economy,this article examines the regional aggregate effect and distribution effect of high-speed rail between central cities and peripheral cities.The regional economic effects produced by the spatial misallocation,and the actual benefits of the “siphon effect” of the high-speed rail are discussed.In order to obtain more reliable empirical evidence,this paper combines city-level macro data and enterprise-level micro data to construct panel data,and spatial misallocation indicators of the "city-to-industry" structure.This article includes eight chapters.Chapter 1 is an introduction,which introduces the research background,targets,methods,basic concepts.Chapter 2 is a literature review,which mainly sorts out and reviews related researches,and makes a systematic summary of the related literature on the relationship between high-speed rail and spatial misallocation.Chapter 3 is a theoretical analysis.It firstly uses spatial equilibrium model to explain the definition of spatial misallocation,and the impact of high-speed rail on the spatial misallocation of labor factors.And then,a theoretical framework is constructed to explain the above-mentioned influence mechanism.Chapter 4 explains the definition and measurement of spatial misallocation,and describes the distribution of the spatial misallocation based on enterprise-level data of China.Chapter 5 examines empirically the above theoretical hypotheses based on China’s evidence.Chapter 6empirically examines the impact mechanism of high-speed rail on the spatial misallocation of labor factors between cities using methods such as the mediating effect model and the moderating effect model.Chapter 7 examines the regional economic effects of the spatial misallocation under the influence of high-speed rail.Chapter 8summarizes the main conclusions,policy enlightenment and research prospects of this article.Through the theoretical and empirical analysis of this article,the following main conclusions are drawn:First,the degree of dispersion of labor productivity or wages in the same industry between cities determines the total regional output and labor welfare.Specifically,the greater the degree of dispersion of labor productivity or wages in the industry between cities,the greater the loss of economic output and labor welfare of the entire region and even the country.Therefore,the spatial misallocation can be measured by the difference in labor productivity or wages between cities.Second,high-speed rail can help curb the spatial misallocation of labor factors between cities.When other conditions remain unchanged,high-speed rail connectivity can reduce the spatial misallocation of labor factors by an average of 4.5%,and this effect also shows a certain degree of spatial spillover and time lag.For those cities that don’t open high-speed rail,they will also benefit due to the HSR network.In addition,when the space-time compression effect caused by high-speed rail increases by 1percent,the degree of spatial misallocation of labor factors among cities drops by an average of 1.33 percent.This reflects the obvious advantages of high-speed rail in the spatial allocation of labor factors compared with other passenger transportation modes.Third,for different high-speed rail convenience,labor transfer difficulty,industry technology and factor characteristics,high-speed rail shows heterogeneous effects on the spatial misallocation of labor factors.First,the higher the convenience of highspeed rail transportation,the stronger its inhibitory effect on the spatial misallocation of labor factors.Higher high-speed rail convenience can be reflected in the proximity of high-speed rail stations to the city center,or more high-speed rail trains.Second,the greater the difficulty of labor transfer between cities,the weaker the inhibitory effect of high-speed rail on the spatial misallocation of labor factors.The difficulty of labor transfer can be reflected in the elasticity of housing supply,housing restriction policies,household registration discrimination,and regional market segmentation.Finally,the inhibitory effect of high-speed rail connectivity on the spatial misallocation of labor factors is stronger in technology-intensive and capital-intensive industries,but not significant in labor-intensive industries.And,with the improvement of the industry’s technological level,this inhibitory effect will be stronger.In addition,the weaker the labor substitution of the industry,the more obvious the inhibitory effect of the highspeed rail on the spatial misallocation of labor.Fourth,the high-speed rail can suppress the spatial misallocation of labor factors through three mechanisms: market potential effects,labor mobility,and enterprise migration.First of all,high-speed rail connectivity can increase the aggregate market potential between cities,which means to improve the relative location conditions of cities and helps to reduce the spatial misallocation of labor factors.Specifically,under other conditions unchanged,for every 1 percent increase in the market potential caused by HSR,the spatial misallocation of labor factors will drop by an average of 1.5 percent.Second,the HSR connection has significantly increased the floating population and labor between cities,and then labor mobility can significantly inhibit the spatial misallocation of labor factors.At the same time,the market potential caused by HSR can also significantly promote labor mobility and further reduce the degree of spatial misallocation of labor factors.Finally,the HSR connection promotes industrial spatial agglomeration and industrial specialization,and these enterprise migration activities further suppress the spatial misallocation of labor factors.In addition,the market potential caused by HSR can also promote the migration of enterprises,thereby inhibiting the spatial misallocation of labor factors.Fifth,the inhibitory effect of HSR on spatial misallocation not only improves the aggregated economic performance of region,but also produces differentiated economic effects between central cities and peripheral cities.First,HSR connectivity has significantly improved the overall labor productivity,employment scale,and output of the overall manufacturing industry in the region.At the same time,the inhibitory effect of HSR on spatial misallocation has also significantly improved the aggregated labor productivity,employment,and output of region.Secondly,under the influence of HSR,industrial labor productivity in central cities and peripheral cities have been significantly improved.But compared with central cities,employment and output in peripheral cities have not been significantly affected,which indicates that HSR connections have caused siphon effect.However,from the perspective of efficiency,the "siphon effect" may essentially be a process of correcting the spatial misallocation of factors. |
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