人员流动与城市间商品价格差异:来自高铁开通的证据

Does Passenger Flow Matter for Price Dispersion?A Quasi-Experiment from China’s High-Speed Rail Opening

本文以中国高铁开通这一自然实验,采用2001-2016年172个地级市的微观商品价格数据,运用倍差法研究人员流动对城市间商品价格差异的影响。研究表明,高铁开通带来的人员流动,能通过促进要素市场一体化和地区间商务往来,显著降低城市间商品价格差异,由此促进地区间产品市场的一体化。通过更换多个代理变量、控制时间趋势、使用基于随机模拟方法的安慰剂检验和事件分析法等多种方法进行稳健性检验,并分别构建了基于最低成本原则和最短距离原则的最小生成树作为两个工具变量来处理内生性问题后,研究结论依然成立。进一步研究表明,高铁开通能推动区域内、区域间以及不同行政级别城市间的经济一体化;高铁站的合理选址与高铁线路的合理设计对充分发挥高铁开通的作用有重要影响。

This paper examines the impact of passenger flow on the dispersion of commodity prices between cities by exploiting the opening of high-speed rail in China as a large-scale natural experiment.The study shows that the passenger flow brought about by the launch of high-speed rail significantly reduces the price dispersion between cities by promoting the integration of factor markets and strengthening interregional trade.The results are robust to alternative proxy variables,controlling for time trends and placebo tests.To overcome the potential endogeneity issue,the paper constructs two instrumental variables using minimum spanning tree networks based on the principle of lowest cost and shortest distance routes,confirming that the results are still valid.Further research reveals that the provision of high-speed rail may promote economic integration within and between regions at different administrative levels.logical location of the stations and design of the lines also exerts a significant impact on shaping the role of high-speed rail.