移民的持久影响:来自新疆兵团屯垦的证据

The Persistent Impact of Immigration:Evidence from the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps

本文研究早期大规模移民对中国新疆发展的长期影响。20世纪50-80年代,分布在中国天山南北的新疆生产建设兵团陆续成立14个师部,承接了来自全国各地的大批援疆人员。通过收集整理新疆地区各县市1947-2010年人口普查面板数据研究后发现,在兵团师部驻扎后,其所在县市表现出持续的人口增长和经济发展;在50年后的人口自由迁徙阶段,兵团的积极效应依然存在。机制分析表明,历史上人口迁移能产生持续的积极影响,不仅是因为在路径依赖下人口迁移产生的自我强化效应,而且是因为与时俱进的制度改革激发了当地的内生发展动力。

This paper studies the long-term impact of early large-scale immigration in the form of the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps(XPCC)on the economic development of the Xinjiang region of the People's Republic of China.Between the 1950s and early 1980s,the XPCC,located north and south of the Tianshan Mountains in China,successively established 14 divisions and received large numbers of aid personnel from across the country to assist the Xinjiang Autonomous Region.By collecting and organising census panel data of counties and cities in the Xinjiang region between 1947 and 2010,it is found that since the quartering of the XPPC divisional headquarters,the counties and cities in which they are established have witnessed continuous population growth and economic development.It is in particular observed 50 years later that the positive effects of the XPCC still exit in the stage of free population migration.The mechanism analysis demonstrates that population migration has been able to produce persistent positive impacts throughout history,not only due to the self-reinforcing effects of path-dependent population migration,but also because of the endogenous dynamics of local development triggered by institutional reforms that keep pace with the times.