劳动力迁移与城市全要素生产率——来自地级市的经验证据

Labor Migration and Urban Total Factor Productivity:Empirical Evidence from Chinese Cities

利用1990、2000、2010年全国人口普查数据和2005、2015年全国1%人口抽样调查数据匹配城市层面经济社会指标,采用工具变量法从地级城市“市辖区”层面考察劳动力迁移对城市经济效率的影响及作用机制。研究发现:劳动力迁移显著提升了城市全要素生产率,在利用普查数据修正传统基于户籍人口统计的劳动力投入数据偏差后,提升效应更为明显。异质性分析表明:劳动力迁移对城市全要素生产率的提升效应在非资源型城市要强于资源型城市,在西部城市要强于东中部城市,在时间上呈现先增后减趋势,在大规模城市比中小城市更为显著。进一步的机制检验表明,劳动力迁移可以通过集聚机制、创新外部性和专业化分工渠道来提升全要素生产率。因此,城市管理者应充分创造条件吸引迁移劳动力,发挥迁移人力资本对城市效率的积极作用。

In recent years,the human capital of migrant labor,as the main source of supply of new urban labor,has been greatly improved,which plays an important role in urban economic efficiency.However,existing literature mainly focuses on the improvement of allocation efficiency brought about by the supply of migrant labor,but lacks in-depth exploration of the impact of labor migration on urban total factor productivity(TFP)and its mechanism.Using the data of all previousnational population censuses from 1990 to 2015 and the data of migrant labor estimated by the 1%National Population Sample Survey,this paper adopts the instrumental variable method to investigate the impact and heterogeneity of labor migration on urban TFP from the level of municipal districts of prefecture-level cities,and further explores whether labor migration affects TFP through agglomeration effect,innovation externality,and specialization mechanism.The results show that labor migration significantly improves urban TFP,and the effect is more obvious after the census data are used to correct the deviation of labor input data based on the statistics of traditional household registered population.Heterogeneity analysis shows that the effect of labor migration on urban TFP is stronger in non-resource-based cities than in resource-based cities,stronger in western cities than in eastern and central cities,and shows a trend of first increasing and then decreasing in time,which is more significant in large-scale cities than in small and medium-sized cities.Further mechanism tests show that labor migration can improve TFP through agglomeration mechanism,innovation externality,and specialization.Compared with existing literature,the possible innovations of this paper include the following aspects.First,this paper attempts to explore the impact of labor migration on urban TFP and its mechanism since the 1990s from the perspective of production efficiency,which adds new research perspectives and empirical evidence to study the economic impact of labor migration in the transition process of developing countries.Second,this paper uses the data of national population censuses and the micro data of the 1%National Population Sample Survey to correct the input bias of China City Statistical Yearbooks that do not include the data on migrant labor,and solve the problem of inconsistency between the statistical caliber of population and labor indicators in urban macro statistics,which makes the research data more representative.It conducts a comparative analysis with the TFP regression results calculated by using the input of labor as urban registered permanent residence,which makes the research conclusion closer to the fact.Third,it tries to solve the endogeneity problems of labor migration and TFP by using the instrumental variable method to overcome the problem of biased estimation.Fourth,based on full consideration of urban heterogeneity,it shows the impact of urban labor migration on economic efficiency of different resource types,and in different regions,different periods,and different scales.From the perspective of production efficiency,this paper reveals the positive impact and internal mechanism of migrant labor on urban TFP.The relevant conclusions provide a theoretical basis and new empirical evidence for urban managers to re-understand the value and positioning of migrant population,which is helpful for government management departments to formulate long-term policies and management measures favorable to migrant population,thus promoting the development of urban-rural integration.