人口集聚对中国城市经济增长的影响分析

人口集聚是新经济地理学关注的焦点,由于连续年份城市建设用地数据难以获取等原因,目前仍无法明确人口集聚是否促进了中国城市经济增长。采用消除连续年份时空异质性的DMSP/OLS夜间灯光数据方法所提取的建设用地等数据,通过构建人口密度影响地均收入水平的理论模型,分析2005-2013年间人口集聚对中国35个大城市经济增长的影响。研究发现人口集聚对中国城市经济增长产生显著的正向影响,其影响程度沿东、中、西部依次递减;在解释机制上,人口集聚主要通过知识和人力资本促进中国城市经济的增长,而知识密集行业占比和高校师生比的空间分布及两者对城市收入的影响是沿东、中、西部依次递减的,是解释人口集聚促进城市经济增长存在空间差异的主要原因。

Effects of population agglomeration on urban economic growth in China

Population agglomeration is the focus of New Economic Geography. However, so far, there is not enough evidence to prove that population agglomeration would promote China's urban economic growth, as it is difficult to obtain data of urban construction land in consecutive years. In this paper, we identify a new way of extracting DMSP/OLS nighttime light data, which could eliminate continuous years of spatial and temporal heterogeneity, to help us obtain data for a robust construction land area. We aim to analyze the effects and spatial disparity of population agglomeration on economic growth of 35 large cities in China from 2005 to 2013, based on a theoretical model of population density that influences per capita urban land revenue. The major results are as follows: population agglomeration has a significant positive impact on urban economic growth in China, and its impact is decreasing from the eastern, the central, to the western regions of China. The results also show that knowledge and human capital are the two main factors promoting urban economic growth in China. We also found that the effects of the ratio of intensive industry and the ratio of college teachers and students on urban incomes is decreasing from the eastern, central, to western regions, and its spatial distribution presents a similar tendency, which are the main reasons for the spatial differences in the effects of population agglomeration on urban economic growth.