A Study Of The Impact Of Heterogeneous Labor Mobility,Human Capital Accumulation On Urban Innovation

In the context of innovation-driven upgrading and continuous urbanization,how to guide the orderly flow of labor factors,bring into play the allocative demographic dividend,and maximize the innovation effect of human capital accumulation and population mobility has become a critical issue for local governments and academics to address.This paper analyzes the impact of human capital accumulation and heterogeneous labor inflow on urban innovation at the theoretical level.The study then uses 2000-2016 prefecture-level city data,2000-2016 China Urban Innovation Index data,and China Migrants Dynamic Survey to empirically analyze the impact and mechanism of human capital accumulation and labor mobility on urban innovation,and to explore the locational heterogeneity and scale heterogeneity among different cities.In this way,the innovation effects of human capital accumulation and labor mobility are revealed.Based on empirical evidence,the main conclusions of this paper are as follows:（1）Human capital accumulation has a significant positive effect on the improvement of urban innovation level,and this effect is more obvious in cities with larger population size;while its effect is not significant in small and medium-sized cities,which indicates that there is a certain threshold requirement for human capital accumulation for the improvement of urban innovation capacity.（2）The coefficient of the interaction term between human capital level and labor flow is significantly positive,indicating that human capital accumulation and labor inflow have a synergistic effect on urban innovation development.Labor heterogeneity analysis shows that the interaction term between high-skilled labor,middle-skilled labor and low-skilled labor inflow and human capital accumulation is significantly positive,which provides evidence for cities to improve the inclusion of middle-and low-skilled labor.This provides evidence for cities to improve the inclusion of middle and low-skilled labor.（3）The mechanism analysis shows that human capital accumulation and labor inflow can influence the innovation capacity of cities through increasing R＆D expenditure,wage substitution effect and promoting manufacturing agglomeration.（4）The results of the urban location heterogeneity study show that cities with significant location advantages have a more pronounced effect on the improvement of urban innovation capacity through higher human capital levels and labor inflows,suggesting that transportation infrastructure accelerates the spillover and diffusion of knowledge and technology,and plays an important role in cities sharing the dividends of regional economic integration.The policy implications of the study are:（1）For mega-cities and megacities,it is necessary to further increase the efforts of household registration reform,follow the mechanism of labor force "voting with their feet",and lower the household registration barriers to population mobility;on the other hand,it is also necessary to give sufficient attention to middle and low-skilled labor force to increase their sense of identity and integration.（2）For large cities,it is necessary to strengthen the hard environment of science and technology innovation to enrich the development opportunities of cities,and also to continuously improve public services to enhance the soft power of cities,and focus on strengthening ties with neighboring cities to fully enjoy the dividends of regional economic integration.（3）For small and medium-sized cities,it is necessary not only to focus on the implementation of external talent introduction policies,but also to improve human capital accumulation and transportation infrastructure conditions internally.On the one hand,it is necessary to increase the financial investment in education to improve the local education level and promote the combination of industry,academia and research to give full play to the role of local human resources,and on the other hand,it is necessary to use the transportation network system to overcome the disadvantage of geographical location.In addition,the government also needs to establish a comprehensive innovation incentive and management system to encourage innovation agents such as enterprises and labor force to act.