网络基础设施建设与劳动收入份额——基于“宽带中国”战略的证据

Network Infrastructure Construction and Labor Income Share: Evidence Based on “Broadband China” Strategy

网络基础设施建设是推动数字经济发展的基础,对促进我国收入分配公平化具有潜在作用。文章以“宽带中国”战略设立示范城市(群)为研究对象,基于沪深A股上市公司数据,研究网络基础设施建设对示范地区企业劳动收入份额的影响。结果显示,“宽带中国”战略显著提升了示范地区企业的劳动收入份额,且提升作用主要在中西部地区、低互联网普及地区、工商业、出口参与企业、国有企业和大规模企业等样本组。关于劳动收入份额的指标分解估计发现,“宽带中国”战略提高了企业的员工工资和就业人数。同时,“宽带中国”战略促进了企业数字化转型进而吸纳高技能劳动力,从数量和质量层面影响企业就业结构。进一步检验发现,“宽带中国”战略显著提高了企业就业净增长率和就业创造率,改善了就业技能结构和研发人才结构,提升了企业劳动收入份额。

Building an income distribution system that reflects efficiency and promotes fairness is one of the important components of China’s modern economic system. In recent years,digital economy has become more and more important in the national economy, and its development is based on the construction of new infrastructure such as broadband and network.Based on the data of Shanghai and Shenzhen A-share Listed Companies from 2010 to 2019, this paper takes the demonstration cities(clusters) set up by the “Broadband China” strategy as the research object, and uses the multi-period DID method to evaluate the impact of network infrastructure construction on the labor income share of enterprises and its mechanism.This paper has the following conclusions: First, the “Broadband China” strategy significantly increases the labor income share of enterprises in demonstration areas. Second, heterogeneity analysis shows that: From the regional and industrial level, the “Broadband China” strategy has a greater impact on the labor income share of enterprises in central and western regions, low internet penetration regions, and industrial and commercial areas;from the enterprise level, the“Broadband China” strategy mainly increases the labor income share of export participating enterprises, state-owned enterprises and large-scale enterprises in demonstration areas. Third, index decomposition analysis shows that, the “Broadband China” strategy mainly improves the average wage and employment, and positively affects labor income share in this way. Fourth, mechanism analysis shows that, the “Broadband China” strategy promotes the digital transformation of enterprises, thereby absorbing highly-skilled labor, and affects the employment structure of enterprises in terms of quantity and quality. Further inspection shows that, the “Broadband China”strategy significantly improves the net employment growth rate and employment creation rate of enterprises, the structure of employment skills, and the structure of R&D talents, and increases the labor income share of enterprises in this way.This paper attaches importance to the characteristics of the new era of digital economy,focuses on the enabling effect of network infrastructure construction on the field of income distribution, and discusses how network infrastructure construction affects the labor income share of enterprises, which expands the existing research perspective. At the same time, it attaches importance to the typical characteristics of enterprise digital transformation. Enterprise digital transformation drives changes in the employment structure, so changes in the employment structure may be a direct channel for network infrastructure construction to increase the labor income share of enterprises, which clarifies the theoretical mechanism of “Broadband China”strategy to promote fair income distribution. In addition, this paper is helpful to provide beneficial policy enlightenment for the Chinese government to continuously promote the construction of new network infrastructure such as 5G and promote the fairness of income distribution, which has important theoretical value and practical significance.