交通基础设施建设与中国地区居民收入差异——基于省级面板数据的分析

Transportation Infrastructure and the Regional Income Disparity in China——An Empirical Analysis Based on Chinese Provincial Panel Data

文章通过理论分析认为地区交通基础设施建设对于居民人均收入差异的作用方向并不是显而易见的。为了合理判断交通基础设施建设对于我国地区居民人均收入差异的综合影响效应,文章针对1980-2010年的分省面板数据并采用系统GMM估计方法进行了回归。结果显示,对于各省区城镇居民人均收入与全部居民人均收入而言,地区交通基础设施建设水平的提高可以显著降低其地区差异。然而,对于农村居民人均收入而言,地区交通基础设施建设水平只有在达到一定门槛值之后才可能会降低其地区差异。对于这种在农村居民收入差异中出现的非线性效应,文章从我国经济分权与政治集权体制视角给出了阐释。

Through theoretical analysis,this paper indicates that effecting direction of transportation infrastructure on the re gional income disparity isn’t obvious.In order to analyze the comprehensive effect of transportation infrastructure on the re gional income disparity,based on the Chinese Provincial Panel Data from 1980 to 2010 and the SYS-GMM regression meth od,the paper shows that the transportation infrastructure can dramatically reduce the variation of regional income disparity for per capita income of urban and overall households.However,when per capita income of rural households is concerned,the transportation infrastructure will reduce the disparity only after reaching a certain threshold.For this kind of nonlinear effect,this paper explains it from the perspective of economic decentralization and political centralization.