城市间要素配置:空间一般均衡下的结构与增长

Inter-city Factor Reallocation:Structural Transformation and Growth in a Spatial General Equilibrium Analysis

中国可以通过调整劳动和土地等要素在城市间的配置,推进结构转型、促进经济增长、提升社会福利。由于规模效应和收入效应,大城市更具发展服务业的优势。本文构建了包含两部门的空间一般均衡模型进行定量分析,结果表明:(1)降低人口流向大城市的障碍(下降25%),服务业占就业和GDP比重将上升约2个百分点,城市间收入差距减少7.3%,GDP和社会福利提高约7%。(2)将大城市的土地供应份额恢复到样本期间的最高值,服务业占就业和GDP比重分别会提高1个百分点,GDP和社会福利提高约3%。(3)在新发展阶段,服务业比重将持续上升,上述改革释放的结构红利会更大。本文研究表明,畅通生产要素国内大循环,释放要素向大城市集聚的潜力,能更好地解决区域资源配置的体制性、结构性问题,推动经济高质量发展,并促进地区间相对平衡。

The Chinese economy currently faces the challenges of promoting consumption,adjusting its structure,and fostering growth.Gaining a thorough understanding of the structural transformation in the new development stage is a prerequisite for simultaneously addressing these tasks.As China’s productivity and per capita income increase,the role of the service sector in employment,GDP,and consumption continues to grow,aligning with the trajectory of economic development.However,compared to developed countries at similar historical stages,China has experienced relatively low levels of employment and value-added in the service sector over the past decade,with a difference of approximately 10 percentage points.This inadequate development of the service sector has resulted in insufficient consumer demand and diminished welfare for the people,thus highlighting unbalanced and inadequate economic development in China.In a large country,the optimization of resource allocation plays a vital role in promoting consumption,adjusting the structure,and driving growth.Previous research has frequently neglected the impact of spatial factors on consumption,structure,and growth.However,it is crucial to acknowledge the interconnection between industrial structure and spatial arrangement.Notably,the service sector has experienced more remarkable development in larger cities than in smaller ones.Therefore,facilitating intercity circulation and optimizing spatial structure and agglomeration effects offer significant advantages in enhancing resource allocation efficiency,promoting structural transformation,and fostering economic growth.However,in the past period,urbanization and land policies in China have imposed various restrictions on the development of large cities,leading to an inefficient or mismatched spatial allocation of factors of production among cities.As a result,the proportion of the population residing in China’s major cities is significantly lower than that in developed countries at similar historical stages.The mismatch of factors of production serves as a crucial determinant that explains the disparities in productivity and per capita GDP between countries and regions.In the case of China,it also grapples with a significant spatial mismatch of factors of production.However,existing research rarely combines labor migration,land supply policies,and the structural transformation from non-service sectors to the service sector.This study aims to bridge this gap by incorporating the impacts of labor migration barriers and land supply policies into the analysis of structural transformation.Through the construction of a spatial general equilibrium model that encompasses two sectors and multiple regions,this study quantitatively examines the effects of spatially inefficient factor allocation among cities on the development of the service sector,economic growth,and balanced regional development.Our model is based on two fundamental assumptions.We first consider non-homothetic preferences,which imply a higher income elasticity of demand for services.As a result,larger cities with higher income levels exhibit increased demand for service consumption.Then,we account for productivity disparities between sectors across different cities,with larger cities enjoying advantages in service sector productivity.These factors collectively contribute to a higher proportion of the service sector in larger cities.Our calibrated model can well fit the main features of China’s urban development.The quantitative analysis indicates the following results.(1)Reducing barriers to labor migration to large cities(by approximately 25%)can increase the share of services in total GDP and employment by 2 percentage points,while reducing inter-city income disparity by 7.3%,increasing total GDP by 7%,and improving social welfare by 7%.(2)Increasing land supply share in large cities to its highest level in the sample period can raise the share of services in employment and GDP by 1 percentage point,and increase total GDP and social welfare by 3%.(3)Simultaneously increasing the land supply in large cities and facilitating the labor flow to these cities will generate larger growth,structural,output,and social welfare gains.(4)As income level increases,the service sector has greater potential,so the structural dividend and social welfare improvement effect released by relaxing factor constraints on large cities will be greater.The policy implication of this paper is that,in the new development stage,the potential of large cities for improving social welfare and growth is becoming increasingly important.By addressing the institutional issues related to regional resource allocation,China can better leverage domestic circulation,promote high-quality growth and achieve inter-regional balance.