Rail Transit And Urban Labor Productivity

In the past 40 years of reform and opening up,China 's rapid urbanization and large-scale population concentration in cities have promoted the continuous growth of urban labor productivity and brought about continuous economic prosperity.While achieving worldrenowned results,major cities such as Beijing and Shanghai have also experienced serious traffic congestion and environmental pollution problems.Therefore,in order to make reasonable use of limited land and transportation resources in urban centers,prioritizing the development of public transportation systems,especially large-volume,high-speed,and networked rail transit,has become the main direction of transportation development in China's large cities.Rail transit can reduce labor commuting costs,promote "face-to-face" communication,improve the matching of different skills and knowledge spillovers within the city,and promote urban labor productivity growth.But as a quasi-public good,it may cause its social benefits to be much lower than the huge cost input and is widely criticized.Therefore,it is of great theoretical and practical significance to scientifically and rigorously evaluate the impact of the completion of China's rail transit on urban economic development.Based on the theory of agglomeration economy,this paper cuts through urban labor productivity,analyzes the effects and mechanisms of the impact of rail transit construction on urban labor productivity,and provides relevant economic theoretical support for relevant urban managers in formulating rail transit policies and plans.First,this article defines the basic concepts of urban labor productivity and rail transit,and attempts to tease out the theoretical context in which rail transit affects urban labor productivity from domestic and foreign literature.Furthermore,from the perspective of agglomeration economy,the economic mechanism of rail transit affecting urban labor productivity is discussed,that is,rail transit may affect urban labor productivity through three paths: city size,population agglomeration,and industrial structure.Secondly,in order to further explore the impact of rail transit on urban labor productivity,this article collected panel data of 32 rail transit cities in mainland China from 2003 to 2017,and studied the impact of rail transit on urban labor productivity.The results are as follows: First,Construct a fixed-effects model and find that there is a significant positive correlation between rail transit and urban labor productivity,and that there is an inverted "U" relationship between rail transit policy intensity and urban labor productivity.Second,construct a multiperiod dual differential model to discover The completion of construction has significantly promoted the improvement of urban labor productivity,and heterogeneity tests show that the first time rail transit has the greatest effect on cities with low administrative levels,while the intensity of rail transit has the greatest effect on cities with high administrative levels;It is found that population concentration has a covering effect on the improvement of urban labor productivity,and the industrial structure and city size have a positive mediating effect on urban labor productivity.Finally,based on the development facts of China 's rail transit and the research results of this article,policy suggestions for rail transit construction are proposed for the reference of relevant city managers.