公路基础设施建设与居民收入差距的影响研究

Research on the Influence of Highway Infrastructure Construction and Residents’Income Gap

公路基础设施建设有助于城市经济增长,而关于公路建设是扩大了还是缩小了收入尚未达成共识。利用我国地级城市数据和OLS估计方法,验证了公路基础设施建设与居民收入差距之间的关系。研究发现,随着公路基础设施建设的逐步完善,居民收入差距会出现先扩大后缩小的“倒U”型趋势,这一结论在稳健性分析和内生性分析中依然成立。据此一个重要的政策建议是,加大对偏远贫困地区公路建设的投资力度,使广大偏远地区的居民能够享受到城市集聚经济的红利,缩小居民收入差距,实现共同富裕。

Highway infrastructure construction contributes to urban economic growth,but there is no consensus on whether highway construction expands or reduces income.This paper verifies the relationship between highway infrastructure construction and residents’income gap by using Chinese prefecture level city data and OLS estimation method.The results show that with the gradual improvement of highway infrastructure construction,the residents’income gap will appear an“inverted U-shaped”trend.This conclusion is still valid in the robustness analysis and endogenous analysis.An important policy suggestion is to increase investment in road construction in remote and poor areas,so that residents in remote areas can enjoy the dividend of urban agglomeration economy,which is the main path to narrow the income gap and achieve common prosperity.