劳动力空间类分和选择效应存在吗——异质性集聚理论的实证检验与机制分析

Does Labor Spatial Sorting and Selection Exist?Empirical Research and Mechanism Analysis Based on the Agglomeration Theory of Heterogeneous Agents

异质性劳动力集聚理论认为,劳动力对城市规模的偏好呈现空间类分现象,而当城市规模“足够大”时,劳动力市场竞争又会对劳动者进行选择。然而,现实中劳动力市场是否存在空间类分与选择尚缺乏经验证据,而且在中国各城市户籍制度、房价差异化背景下是否会呈现不同的形态,同样有待检验。因此,本文基于2014—2017年全国流动人口动态监测数据与2014年和2016年中国劳动力动态调查数据,利用多元有序Probit模型,对异质性主体的空间类分与选择效应进行识别。研究发现,劳动力空间类分现象确实存在,高技能劳动力选择流入特大和超大城市的概率比低技能劳动力分别高8.8%和2.4%,而城市落户门槛与高房价会降低这一概率,即城市对劳动力进行选择。机制分析表明,空间类分和选择现象并存的主要原因在于异质性劳动力集聚收益存在差异。然而,城市的持续健康发展离不开不同技能劳动力之间的协同作用,因此不同规模城市应制定更加适宜的政策以吸引并留住不同技能层次的劳动力。

In recent years,the population of China's internal migrants has been continuously expanding.According to data from the sixth and seventh population censuses,the population of internal migrants rose from 221 million to 493 million between 2010 and 2020.In reality,while both high-skilled and low-skilled workers tend to flow into well-developed large cities,the latter group is less likely to stay and often ends up returning to smaller cities.This phenomenon of differential agglomeration cannot be explained by traditional agglomeration theories.Spatial sorting and spatial selection provide a new perspective to analyze the location choice of heterogeneous agents:the former examines the choice from the perspective of agents,while the latter looks at the cities'selection of individuals,but the two effects lead to one result:more talented workers flow into larger cities.Spatial sorting and spatial selection show the characteristics of survival of the fittest,which determines the distribution of different skilled labor among cities to a certain extent.For some small and medium-sized cities,their economic development and vitality are greatly affected by the large outflow of population and insufficient inflow of high-skilled labor.In this context,it is of great significance to explore the phenomenon of spatial sorting and spatial selection and their working mechanisms.At the same time,household registration and housing restrictions in China are also two important factors affecting spatial sorting and spatial selection.Generally speaking,a higher household registration threshold and high housing price imply that the city in question has better public welfare and public services,which in turn attracts the inflow of labor;on the other hand,a higher household registration threshold and high housing price tend to discourage the long-term residence of labor,thus affecting spatial sorting and selection.But,the sustainable and healthy development of cities cannot be achieved without the participation of both high-skilled and low-skilled labor,and small cities need to attract high-skilled talents while large cities need to treat low-skilled labor well.Therefore,exploring how the household registration threshold and housing prices affect spatial sorting and selection is of great practical significance for local governments to develop talent policies.Using the data of migrants from 2014-2017,China's labor-force dynamics survey data in 2014 and 2016 and China's city data,this paper employs a multivariate ordered probit model to examine the problem of heterogeneous migrants'choice of cities of different sizes.We also explored the working mechanisms from the perspectives of income,employment and elementary education services,and further analyzed the effects of household registration threshold and housing price.The conclusions are as follows.(1)The probability of highskilled migrants choosing megalopolises and megacities is higher than that of low-skilled labor,showing the existence of spatial sorting and selection effects among migrants.(2)Mechanism analysis finds that the main reason for spatial sorting and selection arises from the differential agglomeration benefits of heterogeneous agents.That is,high-skilled labor is more likely to earn more income from the expansion of city size,but they are also more likely to face the problem caused by the lack of access to elementary education for their children in megacities and megalopolises.(3)Furtherly,by analyzing the effects of household registration threshold and housing price,we find that the high household registration threshold and high housing price significantly reduce the probability of high-skilled labor to choose big cities,but have less effect on low-skilled labor.That is,the two factors will weaken the spatial sorting effect but strengthen the selection effect.The possible contribution of this paper is as follows.First,we divided cities into five classes by size and used a discrete choice model to explore the choice of heterogeneous labor for cities of different sizes,thus providing direct evidence for the existence of spatial sorting and selection.Second,we examined the working mechanism of spatial sorting from the perspectives of income,employment and elementary education services,and made some new findings.Third,we analyzed the spatial selection from the perspectives of household registration threshold and housing price.Meanwhile,we compared the differences in spatial sorting and selection between migrants who acquired household registration and those who did not.Due to data limitations,this paper only analyzes the choice of inflow cities,without considering the characteristics of outflow cities.In the future,further consideration can be given to how the characteristics of outflow cities affect spatial sorting and selection.