旅游业会影响城镇化经济增长效应吗?——基于中国的实证检验

Does Tourism Industry Affect Economic Growth During the Process of Urbanization?Empirical Evidence from China

城镇化作为中国经济增长的重要推力,主要在释放需求和创造供给方面对中国经济产生显著的积极影响。然而,传统城镇化模式由于面临诸多约束,已经逐渐开始不符合现代经济增长方式转变的要求。与此同时,随着旅游业发展规模和方式的提升与转型,旅游业引导的城镇化建设模式,不仅可以有效挖掘城镇化建设潜力,并且也成为驱动中国经济增长的新型机制。因此,文章首次将旅游业纳入城镇化影响经济增长的研究框架,在理论分析的基础上,旨在实证检验旅游业发展是否对城镇化的经济增长效应具有调节作用。文章采用中国1999—2014年的省际面板平衡数据,通过引入旅游业与城镇化变量的乘积项,运用多种面板数据计量方法实证检验了旅游业发展对城镇化作用中国经济增长的调节效应。实证结果表明,不仅城镇化对经济增长具有显著正向影响,而且旅游业对城镇化的经济增长效应还存在显著的正向调节作用。

Urbanization is an important tool for developing countries to realize economic growth. There is no doubt that in terms of releasing demand and creating supply over the past three decades,urbanization has contributed significantly to China＇s sustainable economic growth. In fact, as a type of internal impetus promoting industrial transformation, economic growth and social changes, modern tourism not only directly results in the expansion of urban scale and migration of non-agricultural population, it also promotes the restructuring of the urban spatial structure and transformation of urban function in terms of connotation. Finally, through the promotion of urbanization quality, tourism has indirect effects on economic growth. By being incorporated into the study framework of urbanization affecting economic growth, tourism provides a new possible perspective, which is mainly based on the following two aspects. On one hand, the urbanization construction mode guided by tourism acts on economic growth through the promotion of urbanization scale and quality; while on the other hand,tourism can also adjust the influential effects of urbanization on economic growth. Specifically, it is mainly reflected in the following aspects. First, tourism causes the concentration of urban elements.Second, tourism leads the upgrading of urban industry. Third, tourism triggers the transformation of urban function. Eventually, tourism guides the optimization of urban structure.The contributions of this study are mainly reflected in the following three aspects. First, as viewed from a research perspective, based on the re-examination of urbanization impacting economic growth,the typical fact of rapid tourism expansion is fully considered based on the construction concept of tourism guiding urbanization, so as to bring tourism into the fundamental study framework of urbanization impacting economic growth, which is the main empirical test of whether or not tourism can adjust the economic growth effects of urbanization. Second, as viewed from research methods, this is the first study to include the interaction term of tourism and urbanization into the measurement model, which is then empirically tested by adopting the estimation method of the multi-panel data model, to provide the empirical basis for the adjustment function of tourism development on urbanization impacting economic growth. Third, as viewed from research content, this study not only serves as a beneficial exploration of the study path for urbanization impacting economic growth, it also deepens the study system of tourism economics, marking the first time this has been done in existing academic fields. Additionally, in both the exploration of new urbanization mode and economic growth path selection in the structural transformation, the important strategic position of tourism is highlighted throughout China.The research conclusions of this study have strong policy implications. First, by promoting tourism efficiency and attracting urban element transformation, the transformation and upgrading of the industrial system are achieved. Second, by stimulating the tourism consumption and broadening urban space experience, the urban consumption function is strengthened and upgraded. Finally, by optimizing the tourism structure and enhancing the urban industrial concentration, the optimization of the urban spatial structure organization is realized.