高铁开通、人才流动对区域创新的影响及作用机制

Impact of high-speed rail service and talent flow on regional innovation and its mechanism

高铁开通能够加速高素质人才流动,促进知识积累,增加创新产出。该研究借助空间双重差分法,运用2007—2019年长江经济带108个地级及以上城市面板数据,实证检验高铁开通对区域创新水平的影响及作用机制。研究发现:高铁开通对长江经济带沿线城市创新水平有显著的正向影响,其所引致的空间溢出效应明显促进了相邻城市的创新水平;同时,高铁开通通过加速高素质人才自由流动,带来地区间的相互学习、模仿与竞争,从而提升长江经济带城市创新能力。进一步研究发现:高铁开通能够通过加速人才流动促进大城市创新水平提升,但对中小城市创新水平的提升没有显著影响;高铁开通对中部城市创新水平没有显著影响,但能显著促进东部城市和西部城市的创新发展,且高铁开通对东部城市创新水平的正向作用远高于西部城市;人才流动是高铁开通影响东西部城市创新水平的重要传导机制,且该机制在解释高铁开通促进西部城市创新水平提升中作用更大。上述结论表明:未开通高铁城市应因地制宜加快高铁网络建设,充分发挥高铁对区域创新的重要推动作用;西部开通高铁城市要建立健全人才流动机制,重视人才引进培养,全面提升区域创新能力;欠发达城市应加强与周边区域开通高铁的中心城市、大城市的协同发展,充分利用中心城市、大城市创新的空间溢出效应,提高本地创新能力。

High-speed rail service can speed up the flow of high-quality talents and promote the accumulation of knowledge so as to increase the output of innovation. With the help of the spatial difference-in-differences model(SDID), this article made an empirical analysis of the impact of high-speed rail service on regional innovation and its mechanism based on the panel data of 108 cities at the prefecture and above level in the Yangtze River Economic Belt(YREB) from 2007 to 2019. The findings are listed as follows:(1) High-speed rail service had a significant positive impact on innovation in the cities of the YREB, and its spatial spillover effect had an obvious promotion effect on the innovation level in neighboring cities.(2) High-speed rail service raised the innovation capacity of the cities in the YREB by accelerating the free flow of high-quality talents and bringing about mutual learning, imitation, and competition among regions.(3) High-speed rail service promoted the innovation of big cities by accelerating the flow of talents, but its impact on small and medium-sized cities was insignificant.(4) Although high-speed rail service could significantly promote the innovation of eastern and western cities rather than cities in the central region, its positive effect on the innovation of eastern cities was much higher than that of western cities.(5) Talent flow was an important transmission mechanism that facilitated the impact of high-speed rail service on the innovation of eastern and western cities, and this mechanism played a greater role in explaining the impact of high-speed rail service on the innovation of western cities. The above conclusions indicate that cities without high-speed railway service should speed up the construction of the railway network according to their local conditions to give full play to the important role of high-speed rail in promoting regional innovation. The western cities with high-speed rail should establish and improve the mechanism of talent flow, attach importance to talent introduction and training, and comprehensively improve regional innovation ability. Underdeveloped cities should strengthen synergistic development with central cities and big cities with high-speed rail in surrounding areas and make full use of the spatial spillover effect of innovation in these cities in order to boost local innovation capacity.