公路交通性能与服务业发展机会--基于国道主干线贯通中国西部的研究

Highway Traffic Performance and the Development of Service Industry:Employment Effects of the National Trunk Highways in Western China

20世纪末期,中国中央政府启动了雄心勃勃的"五纵七横"国道主干线建设计划,将主要城市和重要口岸联结成网。这些干线自2001年起陆续通车,至2007年基本实现全部贯通。本文将国道主干线对西部地区的覆盖视为一次"交通干预",以县级区划为观测单元,考察服务业就业占全社会就业的份额如何对"交通干预"做出因果响应。识别策略考虑了县域初始条件的异同性和交通外溢性干扰。经验估计表明,国道主干线贯通对其过境县域的服务业就业份额在整体上具有显著的提升效应,这种效应在城市地区明显高于农村地区,同时也因县域服务业就业的初始状况而有所差异。

In 1992, the central government of China authorized a national codified highway system plan, which ambitiously employed 12 trunk highways to comprise a skeleton of the inter-regional highway- network. Most of this infrastructure construction campaign has been accomplished by the end of 2007. In this paper, we focus on Western China and test the treatment effect of the highways＇ coverage in terms of employment growth in the service sector. Using county-level data and the difference-in-difference strategy, the empirical findings suggest that improving Western China＇s transportation environment can significantly increase the employment share of service sector in general. However, the effects differ between urban and rural areas, and the effects differ among counties that hold different initial shares of service in the employment.