高铁开通会促进企业高级人才的流动吗?

Do High-Speed Trains Motivate the Flow of Corporate Highly Educated Talents?

本文利用准实验研究方法,通过手工搜集全国各城市开通高铁的年份数据,量化考察了高铁开通对企业高级人才流动的影响。研究结果表明,高铁的开通能够通过扩大市场规模,进而增加企业的数量和规模,显著增强城市对高级人才的吸引力,从而使该城市上市企业聘请的博士学历高级人才人数增加。进一步考察发现,高铁的开通对国有上市企业和非国有上市企业聘请博士学历高级人才的影响具有异质性,表现为,高铁的开通主要促进了非国有上市企业博士学历高级人才的增加,对国有上市企业的影响并不显著。在此基础上,本文接着考察了高铁开通对不同类型城市和经济区域的影响。研究发现,高铁的开通对中小城市和没有兴建机场的城市的边际贡献更大,在四大经济区中,高铁开通能够为东部地区的发展、中部地区的崛起和西部大开发战略输送高级人才,但并不利于东北老工业区吸引和留住人才。最后,对不同职位的高管人群进行的分类回归表明,高铁开通主要是促进了出差频率高的高级人才的流动。

A number of previous studies have analyzed the effects of transportation infrastructure on the flow of production factors, intra-regional trade, and economic growth. Nevertheless, human capital flows as the most impor- tant economic consequence of transportation infrastructure has not been examined yet. In the context of knowledge- based economy, highly educated talents are the key to improving corporate performance and promoting corporate in- novation. As a result, the impact of high-speed trains on human capital flows can provide important explanations a- bout how transportation infrastructure as a micro mechanism promotes economic growth. This paper examines the effect of the access to high-speed trains on the flow of corporate highly educated tal- ents in the basis of hand-collected data and using the quasi-experiment setting from the establishment of high-speed train stations. The findings show that the establishment of high-speed rail stations can significantly enhance the at- traction of the city to corporate highly educated talents by expanding the size of the market and increasing the quan- tity and the size of enterprises. In addition, high-speed trains have asymmetric impacts on state-owned enterprises and non-state-owned enterprises. Specifically, the positive influence of high-speed rail stations on highly educated talents only exists in non-state-owned listed enterprises, but not in state-owned listed enterprises. Furthermore, above effect is more pronounced for small and medium cities than for their bigger counterparts, as well as for cities without airports than for those with airports. Meanwhile, the establishment of high-speed rail stations motivates more highly educated talents to flow to the eastern, middle and western economic areas, but worsens the attract of the northeast e- conomy area. Finally, the establishment of high-speed rail stations attracted those highly educated executives who are not in charge of corporate daily operation, but not for those in charge of corporate daily operation. Market size and institutional environment are two key factors affecting the allocation of highly educated tal- ents. When the remuneration of highly educated talents is determined by the market, they will choose cities and en- terprises that maximize their talents. Thus, a larger market scale can allow highly educated talents to get more com- pensation. Larger market scale motivates more productive resources to mobilize, so highly educated talents have more incentive to innovate. In addition, larger market scale means more potential consumers, so highly educated talents can get higher remuneration through better products and services. Institutional environment can affect the range of free choice and eventual remuneration, and eventually has crucial effect on the allocation of highly educated tal- ents. Transportation infrastructure has a significant positive impact on market size because high-speed trains can re- duce the cost of factors flow, and thus facilitate the flow of goods, information, and expanding market size by integra- tilag the region with the outside market. The expansion of market size leads to an increase in the quantity and firm size, which eventually motivates enterprises to hire more highly educated talents. Due to the different institutional environments, high-speed trains have an asymmetric effect on highly educated talents between state-owned enterpri- ses and non-state-owned enterprises. Our finding have some important implications for policymakers：First, transportation infrastructure is the catalyst of economic development, which attenuates the gap in economic development across regions in China. The construe- tion of high-speed rail stations can balance the economic development of different regions and reduce the gap in re- gional economic development. However, high-speed rail stations distribute uneven across regions in China. Specifically, the number of high-speed trains in the central and western economic regions is far smaller than tl^at in the east. As a result,the government should attach the importance to the construction of high-speed rail sta- tions in the central and western Regions. Second,the government should speed up the reform of state-owned enter- prises because mixed ownership reforms can encourage state-owned enterprises to compete with non-state-owned en- terprises in a more market-oriented way, and thus enhance the attraction of state-owned enterprises to highly educat- ed talents. Finally, different means of transportation compete and complement each other, city-specific characteristics and the nature of different transport choice need to comprehensively consider the construction process of transport ir^frastructure.