Research On The Influence Of High-speed Railway On Regional Human Capital

Human capital has proven to be an important engine of regional economic growth.Since China started the college enrollment expension in 1999,the human capital has been promoted rapidly.Among them,the gross enrollment rate of higher education in China increased from 10.50% in 1999 to 48.10% in 2018,with an average annual growth rate of 8.34%.However,there are great differences in the distribution structure of human capital among regions.At the same time,high-speed railways(hereinafter referred to as "high-speed railways")with a "space-time compression" effect have sprung up like mushrooms.By the end of 2018,China has opened 106 high-speed rail lines,connecting 194 prefecture-level cities along the line,with an operating mileage of29,000 kilometers,ranking first in the world.In the future,on the basis of the "four vertical and four horizontal" scale,it will further move towards "eight vertical and eight horizontal" to realize the spatial network and high-density layout of the high-speed rail.Based on the prefecture-level city level,this paper conducts a study on the impact of high-speed railway on regional human capital.This naturally raises the question:Does the externality brought about by the opening of high-speed railway raise the level of regional human capital? If so,what is the mechanism and ways to improve regional human capital? Further,is there heterogeneity in the lifting effect? Under the background that high-speed railway is an important transportation infrastructure improvement and human capital has become an important driving force for China’s high-quality development,it is of great theoretical and practical significance to explore the impact of high-speed railway on regional human capital.Based on the quasi-natural test of the exogenous impact structure opened by the high-speed rail,this paper firstly analyzes the current situation of high-speed railway construction and human capital by using balance panel data of 285 prefecture-level and above cities in China from 2003 to2017;Secondly,the double-difference model and the mediating effect model are used to accurately investigate the impact and mechanism of high-speed rail opening on regional human capital,and based on this,further explore the heterogeneous impact of high-speed rail opening on regional human capital;Once again,the geographical distance between the central city and the surrounding city is further divided into geographical circles for expansion analysis,in order to enrich the research perspective of human capital,expand the research field of high-speed rail opening,and provide theoretical basis for cities to effectively improve human capital.The conclusions of this paper are as follows:First,China’s high-speed railway construction developed rapidly from 2008 to2018,and showed a spatial distribution pattern of "East Miscellaneous and West Sparse".At the same time,the regional human capital measured by the number of college students per 10,000 people is increasing year by year.Its spatial concentration distribution shows a northeast-southwest trend,but there are large differences in regional human capital levels.Second,during the sample survey period,the opening of the high-speed rail significantly promoted the improvement of regional human capital,and the promotion has a significant time dynamic effect,showing a rising trend year by year.After the use of instrumental variables to alleviate the endogenous problem and the robustness test,the effect of the exogenous impact of high-speed rail opening on the regional human capital is still valid.The mechanism found that the labor mobility and industrial agglomeration caused by the opening of the high-speed rail jointly promoted the promotion of human capital,which the impact of labor mobility was the most effective,and the impact of industrial agglomeration was limited.Third,the heterogeneity test based on geographical location characteristics and urban level characteristics shows that the promotion effect of high-speed railway on regional human capital is more significant in eastern regions and general cities.In addition,based on the distance between the central city and the surrounding cities,it is found that with the increase of geographical distance,the human capital promotion effect of high-speed railway shows the "inverted u-shaped" feature of "going up first" and then "down".