县域城镇化的创业效应——基于政府和市场的多维分析

The Entrepreneurial Effect of County Urbanization:A Multidimensional Analysis Based on Government and Market

加快县城建设对于提升中小城市承载能力、促进农业转移人口就近城镇化具有重要意义。文章以要素集聚理论为基础,利用2013年后的撤县设市为自然实验,实证检验了以县城为载体的城镇化建设对当地创业活动的影响。研究发现,升级为县级市后当地每年平均增加了92家工商企业。将创业效应进行分解后发现,撤县设市对超过50%的行业具有显著的促进作用,其中,批发零售业中的创业效应最强,农林牧渔业、交通运输、仓储和邮政业中的新增企业最多,每年超过35家。机制分析表明,县级市通过主动增加土地供给和教育医疗等公共服务为市场主体提供了更好的创业环境和外部支持,提高了县城吸纳农业转移人口就地、就近城镇化的能力,激发了居民创业的内生动力。进一步分析发现,县域城镇化的创业效应依赖于被撤县的空间位置和人口规模。文章从政府和市场的双重视角进行研究,为推进以县城为重要载体的城镇化建设提供了经验证据和有益的政策启示。

As of the end of 2021,China's urban population reached 910 million,with 250 million residing in county towns and county-level cities,accounting for nearly 30% of the nation's urban population.With the ongoing development of county towns,the"14th Five-Year Plan"period is expected to witness an influx of more rural migrant populations converging towards county towns,making in situ urbanization a focal point of policyattention.County-to-city upgrading seeks to elevate the development quality of county towns.This paper investigates the impact of county-to-city upgrading on local enterprises'entry.The results indicate that the establishment of new cities spurs the entry of new enterprises,with a positive entrepreneurial effect observed in 15 out of 18 major industry categories.Notably,there is a significant 52.22% increase in locally registered wholesale and retail enterprises after county-to-city upgrading.Moreover,over 35 new enterprises are added annually in industries such as agriculture,forestry,animal husbandry,fisheries,transportation,warehousing,and postal services.From the standpoint of government fiscal expenditure,the average total local fiscal expenditure increases by 9.6%annually after the policy.Further analysis reveals that the improvement in local educational resources and hospital bed numbers(ranging from 9%to 10%)outpaces the rate of population concentration(ranging from 2.7%to 7.5%),indicating that municipal governments can expedite population concentration by offering quality public services and thereby stimulate entrepreneurial activities.The possible contributions of this paper are as follows:First,existing literature primarily examines the policy effect of county-to-city mergers in peripheral areas of cities from the perspectives of urban expansion and labor market integration,while this paper provides empirical evidence from a micro-level perspective regarding the effect of county-to-city upgrading under the new urbanization framework.Second,using the county-to-city upgrading,a government-driven urbanization initiative,as a natural experiment,this paper enriches the entrepreneurship research from a spatial perspective and offers new explanatory mechanisms for regional entrepreneurship.