基础设施升级、劳动力流动与区域经济差距——来自高铁开通和智慧城市建设的证据

Infrastructure Upgrading, Labor Mobility and Regional Economic Gap——Evidence from High-speed Railway and Smart City Construction

缩小区域经济差距是实现共同富裕的应有之义。基于劳动力流动视角,本文以“高铁开通”和“智慧城市建设”分别作为传统、新型基础设施升级的准自然实验,利用2003-2019年中国275个地级及以上城市的面板数据,运用双重差分模型考察基础设施升级对区域经济差距的影响。研究发现:(1)基础设施升级(高铁开通和智慧城市建设)可以显著缩小区域经济差距,其中智慧城市建设对区域经济差距的缩小作用更大,在缓解内生性及进行一系列稳健性检验之后,这一结论依然成立;(2)进一步分析发现,基础设施升级引致的劳动力流动会缩小区域经济差距,且智慧城市建设的作用更为有效;(3)异质性分析表明,相较于中西部城市,基础设施升级会显著缩小东部城市的区域经济差距。上述结论为如何推动基础设施升级实现区域协调发展具有一定的启示意义。

Narrowing the regional economic gap is the due meaning of realizing common prosperity.Based on the perspective of labor mobility, this paper takes“High-speed Railway”and“Smart City Construction”as quasi natural experiments of traditional and new infrastructure upgrading respectively and uses the panel data of 275 prefecture level and above cities in China from 2003 to 2019,to apply the Double Difference Model to investigate the impact of infrastructure upgrading on regional economic gap.It is found that:(1)Infrastructure upgrading(“High-speed Railway”and“Smart City Construction”)can significantly narrow the regional economic gap, and Smart City Construction plays a greater role in narrowing the regional economic gap.This conclusion is still valid after alleviating endogeneity and a series of robustness tests;(2)Further analysis shows that the labor mobility caused by infrastructure upgrading will narrow the regional economic gap, and the role of“Smart City Construction”is more effective;(3)Heterogeneity analysis shows that compared with central and western cities, infrastructure upgrading will significantly narrow the regional economic gap of eastern cities.The above conclusions have certain enlightenment significance for how to promote infrastructure upgrading and realize regional coordinated development.