A Study On The Impact Of Labor Mobility On Coordinated Development Of Regional Economy In China

Labor force has the dual attributes of production factor supply and product market consumption,and is also the main body and source of innovation,whose spatial allocation and changes have a profound impact on regional economic development patterns.Under the trend of negative population growth,it has become a fact that the spatial distribution of labor force has become more significantly different due to mobility.In addition,the problem of uncoordinated regional development in China is becoming more and more prominent,especially some of the net labor outflow regions in northeast,central and western China have shown obvious sluggish economic growth.The causal effect of labor outflow in this has not yet formed a generally accepted research conclusion,mainly because the relationship between labor mobility and regional economic convergence has not formed a definite conclusion at the theoretical level,as Neoclassical Economic Theory and New Economic Geography Theory got contradictory results based on different assumptions and research paradigms.Faced with the basic trend that labor force will continue to move in a large scale in China and the real dilemma that it is difficult to implement policies for coordinated regional economic development under the planning pattern over all regions,it is important to clarify the impact of labor force mobility on coordinated regional economic development in order to scientifically view the phenomenon of labor force mobility,accurately grasp the current situation of coordinated regional economic development and the root causes of constraints,optimize policies for coordinated regional economic development,and achieve the modernization goal of common prosperity for all people.On the basis of a clear definition of the connotation of coordinated regional economic development,a comprehensive research framework on the influence of labor mobility on coordinated regional economic development is proposed in three subdimensions: coordinated regional economic growth,coordinated regional industrial structure and coordinated regional human capital,and a systematic research on the influence of labor mobility on coordinated regional economic growth,labor mobility on coordinated regional industrial structure and labor mobility on coordinated regional human capital is conducted with theoretical analysis,summary of characteristic facts and empirical tests.The characteristics of labor mobility in China are summarized by using census and labor force dynamics survey data,and the current status of the three dimensions of coordinated regional economic development is analyzed by integrating the coefficient of variation,Dagum-Gini coefficient,Theil index,Markov transfer matrix and kernel density estimation.On the basis of grasping the trend correlation between the two above,the panel model,threshold model and spatial econometric model are comprehensively used to test the effect of labor mobility on those three dimensions.The causality and robustness of the results are ensured by the instrumental variable 2SLS regression,and the regional heterogeneity of the effects of the three dimensions of regional coordinated economic development influenced by labor mobility is analyzed by group regression.Moreover,the empirical part of labor mobility influencing regional human capital coordination applies Mincer equation to test the human capital accumulation effect in labor mobility experience.The research shows that:(1)The process of reforming the household registration system promotes the continuous expansion of the total scale of labor force mobility,and the mobile labor force shows the structural trends of increasing aging,gender ratio tends to be balanced,and the proportion of higher education is increasing.The concentration of labor force in economically developed provinces(cities)in the east,south and coast leads to the spatial sparsity pattern,and the proportion of labor force return has increased in recent years.At present,the absolute gap of regional economic growth keeps expanding and the relative gap tends to narrow,and the regions with expanding absolute gap are highly consistent with the regions with labor force concentration distribution.The overall increase of regional industrial concentration level shows regional differentiation,and the labor force concentration is positively correlated with the regional industrial concentration level,and the net outflow of labor force is generally in a relatively low industrial concentration state.In general,the human capital stock within each region has increased and tended to be balanced,but regional human capital mismatch exists as the absolute difference between the human capital stock and the economic growth gap among regions does not match.(2)The increase of net labor force inflow rate plays a significant positive causal effect on regional economic growth,and the matching state of labor force concentration and economic concentration in different regions leads to heterogeneity in the effect of labor force inflow on economic growth.To the left of the size threshold of regional employment,the net labor force inflow has a positive driving effect on economic growth in the eastern region and a negative one on economic growth in the central,western and northeastern regions.After the employment reaches the threshold size,the driving effect of net labor inflow on economic growth in the east tends to slow down,while the economic growth in the central,western and northeastern regions starts to have a significant boosting effect.Under the pattern of continuous one-way labor inflow from less developed regions to developed regions,In the early stage,labor mobility brings the less developed regions a positive effect of eliminating excess labor to match the regional economic agglomeration level,leading the increase of per capita output in the less developed regions even exceeds the economic growth driven by labor productivity increase in the developed regions.However,the outflow of labor force at a later stage will not be able to meet the demand of economic growth in less developed regions,making the economic growth gap between regions show a trend of first narrowing and then widening.(3)The increase of net labor inflow rate can significantly promote the overall level of regional industrial structure coordination to rise.The different levels of development of industrial structure and modernized industrial system in regions lead to the heterogeneity of the effect of labor inflow on regional industrial structure coordination.Labor inflow has a significant positive promoting effect on the degree of industrial structure coordination in eastern and central regions,while western and northeastern regions are not attractive enough for high human capital.The general labor force inflow has limited effect on labor productivity enhancement,may instead inhibits labor compensation level enhancement by supply inverse,which is not conducive to industrial transformation and upgrading.The level of regional industrial structure coordination has a significant positive spatial autocorrelation,and there is a "club" effect of inter-regional industrial collaboration,in which labor flow plays a significant positive spillover effect,but the spillover effect mainly radiates to regions with close economic ties rather than geographical adjacence.And there is a mutual promotion effect between geographically adjacent regions in terms of labor compensation and physical capital formation.(4)At present,most of human capital mismatch regions are under-allocated in China show the overall situation that the supply of human capital is lower than the actual demand of economic development.The over-allocation of human capital is mainly in the central and western provinces,while the pace of transformation to technology-intensive and knowledge-intensive industries in Beijing and Shanghai lags behind the level of human capital concentration leading to the status of overallocation.Labor mobility drives the efficiency of human capital allocation and utilization,which can significantly alleviate the degree of regional human capital mismatch.Labor mobility experience can generate additional marginal income enhancement for work experience,proving that the mobility process has significant human capital accumulation effect,and less developed regions with insufficient human capital allocation should change their resistant attitude toward labor mobility and replace the restriction on labor mobility with optimized environment and talent attraction policies.Local labor force outflow should be actively contacted rather than treated negatively,stimulating the intimacy to hometown and making preferential policies to attract local nationals to return is an effective way to enhance the regional human capital stock.The main marginal contributions of this study are: firstly,the connotation dimension of coordinated regional economic development is extended,as the connotation of coordinated regional economic development is precisely defined by combining the real dilemma of coordinated regional economic development and the fundamental requirement of national coordinated regional development strategy,thus three comprehensive criteria for measuring coordinated regional economic development are proposed: coordinated regional economic growth,coordinated regional industrial structure and coordinated regional human capital.Secondly,the causal relationship of labor mobility affecting coordinated regional economic development is explored,as causal evidence is provided for the correlation of labor mobility affecting coordinated regional economic development by constructing reasonable instrumental variables.Thirdly,the empirical findings of labor mobility on regional economic growth gap are enriched.Based on the threshold model showing the existence of regional heterogeneity in the effect of labor mobility on economic growth,combined with the different matching states of labor concentration and economic agglomeration,the analysis concludes that there is a stage of per capita output growth in less developed regions with the evacuation of excess labor in the early phase,rather than the immediate loss of labor leading to the lack of economic growth momentum.Finally,it broadens the reference of ways to enhance human capital in less developed regions.Based on the examination of human capital accumulation effect in labor mobility experience,it suggests that less developed regions should change their negative mentality towards labor mobility and neglect of local outflow labor force,and formulate talent introduction policies should not only focusing on academic and skill talents in general sense,but also actively contact local outflow labor force and use the intimacy to hometown and preferential policies to attract local labor force return.