Study On The Impact Of Urban Size On The Average Wage Of Urban Workers In China

According to the latest statistics of the National Bureau of Statistics,China's urbanization rate reached 59.58% in 2018.With the rapid progress of urbanization,the number of urban population is increasing and the scale of cities is expanding.However,the excessive expansion of urban scale has led to serious "urban diseases" such as traffic congestion,high house prices and environmental pollution.Therefore,a large number of scholars have conducted in-depth research on whether China's cities can continue to expand and what kind of urbanization development path they should take.From different perspectives,using a variety of theoretical and empirical analysis methods,they have conducted research on China's urban development issues and put forward scientific and effective policy recommendations.On the basis of the existing research,this paper first theoretically discusses the relationship between average wage of urban workers and urban scale from four perspectives: cost of living difference hypothesis,ability cluster hypothesis,agglomeration effect and crowding effect,and points out that there is an inverted U-shaped relationship between them.Then,249 cities of prefecture level and above in China are selected to use their panel data from 2002 to 2016 to make empirical tests on the relationship between average wage of urban workers and urban scale.The results show that there is a significant inverted U-shaped relationship between them,that is,the average wage of urban workers increases first and then decreases with the increase of urban scale.After regression with control variables,it is found that investment in fixed assets,foreign direct investment,human capital,industrial structure,government intervention and urban public infrastructure(urban road area,green coverage of urban built-up areas)have a positive effect on the average wage of urban workers.Further grouping regression is carried out according to the characteristics of cities.The sample cities are divided into three categories according to the regional heterogeneity.The regression results show that the impact of urban size on the average wage of urban workers has regional differences.The inverted U-shaped relationship between the two is significant only in the eastern cities,and the first term coefficient of urban scale in the eastern region is the largest,indicating that the eastern region has the largest one-way coefficient.The average wage of urban workers in the central and western regions is more affected by the size of the city than by the cities in the central and Western regions.According to the heterogeneity of scale,the sample cities are divided into mega-cities,big cities,medium-sized cities and small cities.The study finds that the coefficient of one-time scale of mega-cities is negative,and the urban scale has a negative effect on the average wage of urban workers;there is still a significant inverted U-shaped relationship between the average wage of urban workers and the urban scale in big cities;and there is a negative relationship between the average wage of urban workers and the urban scale in medium-sized cities There is an inverted U-shaped relationship between the average wage of urban workers and the scale of the city,but it is not significant.The scale of the city still has a positive effect on the wage,and the development of the scale of the city needs to be strengthened in the future.According to the hierarchical heterogeneity,the sample cities are divided into first-line,second-line,third-line,fourth-line and fifth-line cities.The study finds that the relationship between the average wage of urban workers and the urban scale in first-line cities(Beijing,Shanghai,Guangzhou and Shenzhen)is no longer inverted U-shaped.The coefficient of one-term urban scale is negative.The population scale of first-line cities has restrained the average wage of urban workers.It is necessary to strengthen the level of urban planning and management and control the population scale reasonably.The average wages of urban workers in second-tier and third-tier cities still show a significant inverted U-shaped relationship with the urban scale,and most cities have not yet reached the optimal urban scale.The conclusion of this study further shows that the impact of urban scale on the average wage of urban workers will change with the different characteristics of cities.Our government can implement more targeted urbanization development policies according to the characteristics of different cities.On this basis,this paper puts forward relevant policy suggestions: putting big cities and small cities on an equal footing,and implementing differentiated development strategies to promote regional coordinated development by taking big cities with small ones;promoting the "transformation" of cities in the eastern region,and speeding up the process of the rise of the central region and the development of the western region.