区域一体化政策能促进企业垂直分工吗?--来自撤县设区的证据

Can Regional Integration Policy Promote Vertical Specialization?Evidence from the City-County-Merge

国民经济循环体系的畅通需要加强地区间的分工协作。在地区市场分割的现实情境下,区域一体化政策能否缓解市场分割,推动分工深化成为重要命题。现有研究多从宏观经济或人口角度考察区域一体化政策的经济后果,基于企业行为的研究相对较少。本文从微观企业入手,考察了撤县设区这一区域一体化政策对企业垂直分工的影响。研究发现,撤县设区后所在原县域公司的垂直分工水平显著提高。机制检验表明,撤县设区通过扩大企业可达的市场范围以及降低企业面临的交易成本起到对企业垂直分工的推动作用。进一步检验发现,撤县设区对企业垂直分工的促进效果在原县级政府对企业干预力度更强时更加显著。同时,撤县设区带来的企业垂直分工水平的提升进一步提高了企业的全要素生产率。结论表明,区域一体化政策能够推动分工深化进而提高经济效率。

At the macro level,the improvement of firm specialization is important to building a smooth domestic circulation,so as to guide the efficient growth of the national economy.At the micro level,the improvement of firm specialization is important to the development of firms.However,the phenomenon of regional market segmentation caused by local protectionism since the reform and opening up has blocked the development of regional division of labor and cooperation,thus hindering the structure of domestic circulation.Therefore,how to promote the regional industrial division and cooperation,and give play to the advantages of corporate specialization is an important proposition in social and economic development.Under the perspective of firm behavior,this paper investigates the influence of one of Chinese regional integration policy City-County-Merge.At the macro level,the City-County-Merge expands the market scope of the firms in the merged county.At the micro level,the City-County Merge reduces the transaction costs that firms in county suffer.According to the division of labor theory and the transaction cost economics,the changing of the administrative boundary effectively integrates the new district market and the original municipal district market,hence expanding the market scope.At the meanwhile,the transaction costs suffered by firms in the merged county also decreasing with the breaking and restructuring of the administrative boundary.Finally,the specialized division among firms will be promoted.The study found that,after City-County-Merge,the specialization level of the companies from treated counties increased markedly.This effect mentioned above is more significant when the governments of treated counties intervene the local market more strongly.Further,the plausible economic mechanisms through which the City-County-Merge promotes corporate vertical specialization would be the expanding of market scale and the reduction of transaction costs.Finally,the total factor productivity(TFP)of corporates from treated counties increased markedly due to the enhancement of corporate vertical specialization.In conclusion,regional integration policy has positive effects on the division among corporates.And corporates could derive the improvement of economic efficiency from the specialization.This paper shows that regional integration policy has positive effects on boosting the economic development through facilitating the division of labor.There are two possible contributions of this paper.Firstly,this paper adds to the related research on the influencing factors of corporate boundary.Based on the Chinese background of local protectionism,this paper verifies the impact of regional market segmentation on the level of corporate specialization,and supplements the relevant research on the influencing factors of corporate boundary under the background of system with Chinese institutional characteristics.Secondly,this paper contributes to the relevant studies on the effect of the policy of the City-County-Merge by providing micro level mechanism evidence for previous macro level research.Additionally,the conclusion of this paper may have some policy implications.Firstly,this paper reveals the regional integration effect of administrative division adjustment policy.Breaking the barriers of regional market and establishing national unified market need not only a solid institutional foundation,but also a good market environment.On the basis of administrative division adjustment policy,the government should also actively guide the market,create a good business environment,and builds a favorable platform for industrial division and cooperation,so as to give full play to the policy effectiveness.Second,the market segmentation problem is widespread at all levels of administrative divisions,and the policy effect of City-County-Merge is mainly reflected in alleviating the market segmentation problem between county level administrative regions and municipal districts within the city.The government should actively explore policies and measures to promote market integration between cities and between provinces.And the implementation effect of exiting measures is worth further study in the future.