三线建设的地区经济效应:历史逻辑与实证检验

The Regional Economic Effects of Third Front Construction:Historical Logic and Empirical Analysis

对后发国家而言,由政府主导的工业化是其最常采用的发展模式。对产业政策的长期影响进行评估至关重要,因为它将成为制定未来发展战略的有效参照。改革开放之前,中国采取了重工业优先发展的赶超战略,三线建设是其中的典型代表。本文利用三线建设这一准自然实验,在第二次全国工业普查(1985年)等数据基础上,通过回归分析,研究了历史上的产业政策所带来的长期影响。研究发现,三线建设对地区长期经济绩效有正向影响,不过该效应随着时间的推移逐渐减弱。为克服计量模型中的遗漏变量偏误,本文使用了抗战时期后方的工业数据作为工具变量重新估计模型,结论依然稳健。工具变量不仅有助于实现因果推断,还可以帮助理解历史是通过何种途径塑造了当下的经济结构。

For late-developing countries,government-led industrialization is the development model most often adopted.An assessment of the long-term impact of industrial policy is crucial,as it will serve as a useful reference for formulating future development strategies.Before the reform and opening-up policy,China has adopted a catch-up strategy of prioritizing the development of heavy industry,of which the Third Front Construction is a typical example.Using the natural experiment of the Third Front Construction,combined with data from the Second National Industrial Census,this paper examines the long-term effects of the historical industrial policy.It finds that the Third Front Construction has a positive effect on the long-term economic performance of the region.However,the effect gradually weakens over time.To overcome omitted variable bias in the econometric model,the industrial development statistics of several counties in the period of the Anti-Japanese War are used as instrumental variables to reevaluate the model,and the findings remain robust.Instrumental variables not only help to achieve causal inference,but can also help to understand the pathways through which history has shaped the economic structure in the present.