技术关联、交通可达性与企业生产率——基于公路和铁路的研究

Technological relatedness,regional accessibility and firm productivity

企业是区域经济发展的微观基础。企业生产率增长会影响区域长期经济发展,因此有必要深入分析企业生产率变动的影响因素和内在机制。基于中国工业企业年度调查数据(ASIF),通过两阶段回归模型(2SLS)探讨企业与区域产业环境间的技术关联对企业生产率的影响,并分析不同交通类型的区域可达性的调节作用差异。结果显示:①企业与区域间的技术关联越高,企业的全要素生产率会越高。②区域可达性能够调节技术关联与企业生产率间的关系,且异质性交通网络的调节效应不同。在公路可达性高的区域内,企业生产率受到企业与区域间技术关联的影响较强;相反,提升区域铁路可达性则主要表现为削弱技术关联对企业生产率的作用。③区域可达性的调节效应还存在产业和空间异质性。比起劳动密集型企业,资本、技术密集型企业的生产率与技术关联间的关系受区域可达性的影响更明显。对于不同区域,公路可达性会使东部企业的生产率更依赖技术关联,而中西部企业刚好相反;铁路可达性则能促使东部企业发生“突破性”的生产率变化,对中西部企业没有明显影响。

Firm productivity is the basis to maintain regional sustainable development.Recent studies positively link the role of technological relatedness to various economic indicators,including firm survival,firm innovation and firm productivity.The co-agglomeration of diverse industries facilitates inter-industry spillovers and firms are more likely to benefit from interindustry spillovers given the industries engage in similar types of economic activities.It leads to the recombination of new ideas and eventually promotes firm performance.While technological relatedness has been linked to promoting economic growth and development,it is unlikely that all firms will benefit equally from technologically related spillovers.Firms with better regional accessibility have higher incentives to seek out and rely on un-local resources,which in turn,affect the relations between technological relatedness and firm economic productivity.Based on China's Annual Survey of Industrial Firms(ASIF),this article employs a two-stage least squares(2SLS)method to investigate the effects of technological relatedness on firm productivity,which varies for different kinds of regional accessibility.The results show that:(1)Technological relatedness plays an important role in increasing firm productivity.Firms are more likely to benefit from inter-industry spillovers given the industries engage in similar types of economic activities.(2)The effects of technological relatedness on firm productivity have been shown to depend,in part,on the regional accessibilities.The growth of the firms with better road accessibility will be more dependent on technological relatedness,while the increase of regional railway accessibility may weaken the influences of technological relatedness.(3)There is industrial and spatial heterogeneity in the moderating effect of regional accessibility.Compared with labour-intensive firms,the relations between technological relatedness and the capital-intensive and technology-intensive firm productivity can be more significantly affected by regional accessibility.Besides,the improvement of road accessibility makes firms in the eastern region more path-dependent,and firms in the western region more path-breaking.Nevertheless,regional railway accessibility has no significant impact on firms in the central and western regions.The findings indicate that both technological relatedness and regional accessibility play a substantial role in improving the firm productivity in transitional economies.