交通基础设施、区际贸易与地区经济发展——以公路为例

Transportation Infrastructure, Interregional Trade and Regional Economic Development: Highway as an Example

本文探讨公路通过区际贸易路径影响地区经济发展的背后机制。利用《2012年中国31省区市区域间投入产出表》和其他相关数据,估算出以地级行政单位为主体的城市间贸易金额和贸易重量,从中总结中国内需市场特点:(1)在国内贸易大循环中,500公里以内集中了81.3%贸易金额和74.9%贸易重量;(2)城市的经济潜力分布呈现出由沿海向内陆逐渐衰减的圈层结构,长三角、珠三角城市群处于核心位置。在此基础上,进一步识别出公路通过区际贸易路径对城市贸易水平、产业发展发挥作用的两种机制。机制一是修建公路,缩短了城市间公路距离,能够增加城市间贸易量,提升城市经济潜力,进而提高不同产业雇用人数和产值。机制二是修建公路,增加了城市内部公路存量,重量价值比更高的产业运输成本下降更多,它们将向其他城市输出更多商品,雇用人数和产值也会得到更大程度提升。本文发现对于制定畅通国内大循环、激发内需潜力相关政策具有重要启示意义。

This paper explores the mechanism behind the impact of highways on regional economic development through interregional trade routes.Using the 2012 China multi-regional input-output table of 31 provincial units and other relevant data, this paper estimates the value and weight of intercity trade with prefecture-level administrative units as the main body and summarizes the characteristics of China's domestic demand market as follows.(1) In the domestic intercity trade, 81.3% of the trade value and 74.9% of the trade weight are concentrated within 500 kilometers.(2) The distribution of urban economic potential presents a circular structure that gradually decays from the coast to the inland.Yangtze River Delta City Cluster and Pearl River Delta City Cluster are at the core.On this basis, this paper further identifies two mechanisms through which highways play a role in urban trade level and industrial development through interregional trade routes.The first mechanism is to build roads, which shortens the road distance between cities, increases the volume of intercity trade, increases urban economic potential, and then increases the number of employees and output of different industries.The second mechanism is the construction of highways, which increases the stock of highways in the city and reduces the transportation cost of higher weight-value ratio industries more.This will make them export more goods to other cities, and the number of employees and output will also increase more.The possible innovative points of this article are reflected in the following four aspects.(1) This article uses three publicly available materials to estimate the average weight-to-value ratio of goods in different industries(i.e., the ratio of the total weight of goods to the total value of goods) and obtains the weight attributes of different industries, providing basic data for relevant research.By combining data on intercity trade value, the weight of intercity trade can be obtained, making it possible to analyze both trade value and trade weight simultaneously.(2) Unlike many studies that use the linear distance between cities and urban GDP to calculate market access(MA) indicators, this article uses intercity road distance and intercity trade data to more accurately calculate MA indicators, which are used to reflect the economic potential of each city.(3) This article summarizes two characteristics of China's domestic demand market from the perspective of intercity trade—first, the concentration of most intercity trade value and weight within 500 kilometers and, second, the distribution of urban economic potential having a gradually decreasing circle structure from coastal to inland.(4) The article uses intercity trade data to empirically test two mechanisms through which highways affect regional economic development via interregional trade routes. The findings of this article have strong practical significance.First, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and the State Council have repeatedly emphasized accelerating efforts to foster a new pattern of development that is focused on the domestic economy and features positive interplay between domestic and international economic flows. Intercity trade is an important carrier to smooth domestic systemic circulation.The characteristics of intercity trade summarized in this paper can provide a reference for the introduction of relevant policies.Second, the current economic growth rate in China has slowed down, and the international market is full of uncertainty.The central government has introduced multiple policies aimed at promoting the rapid development of the domestic market and stimulating domestic demand potential.The estimated economic potential of each city in this article can help determine the relevant policy driving points.Finally, the report of the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China pointed out that we should move faster to boost China's strength in transportation, which means that transportation infrastructure will still be the focus of the country in the future.This paper provides empirical evidence for evaluating the investment effect of existing transportation infrastructure and has reference for formulating policies in the field of transportation in the future.