大城市劳动者工资为何更高?——基于不同规模城市劳动者收入分布差异的分析

Why Laborers in Large Cities Earn More? Analysis Based on Income Distribution between the Different Scale Urban

基于中国家庭收入调查数据(CHIPS),本文利用不同规模城市劳动者工资收入分布的差异,将城市规模对劳动者收入的集聚效应与选择效应进行分离,并进一步对比了市场化改革前后城市规模对劳动者收入影响的变化。研究结果表明,市场化改革以来,城市规模对劳动者的集聚效应逐渐消失,选择效应逐渐加强,表现为大城市系统性收入优势消失,低收入劳动者占比下降。因此,目前大城市劳动者收入较高,可能不是因为大城市提升了劳动者的人力资本水平,而是大城市竞争更为激烈,淘汰了低技能劳动力的结果。这一发现为理解当前快速城市化背景下收入差距不断扩大的现象提供了新的视角。

Using Chinese household survey data（CHIP）, and a new quantile approach, we separate the agglomeration effect and select effect of urban scale on labor income and compare the evolution of those effects. The results show that, since the market reform, urban scale of the combined effect of the gradual disappearance of the workers, the gradual strengthening of selec- tion effects, systemic manifestations of metropolitan income advantage disappears, the propor- tion of low-income workers declined. Therefore, the current high labor income cities, probably not because of the big cities to enhance the level of human capital of workers, but more competi- tive cities, out of the results of low-skilled labor. This finding provides a new perspective for understanding the current income gap between rapid urbanization growing phenomenon.