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The impact of high-speed railway on labor market between the North and South: evidence from China

Author

Listed:
  • Xinyuan Wang

    (Beijing Jiaotong University)

  • Daisheng Tang

    (Beijing Jiaotong University
    Beijing Jiaotong University)

  • Yahong Liu

    (Beijing Jiaotong University)

  • Tao Bu

    (Beijing Jiaotong University)

Abstract

Labor divergence between North and South has formed, and the high-speed rail (HSR) plays a key role in labor’s agglomeration in China. Regarding China’s HSR as a quasi-natural experiment, we construct a difference-in-difference (DID) model to explore the impact of HSR on the labor market of North and South China based on the panel data of 285 cities in China from 1998 to 2018. HSR significantly enhances labor quantity and relieves labor misallocation in South China, while has an insignificant effect on labor quality. It mainly improves the allocation efficiency of the labor market by the improved regional accessibility, which has obvious threshold effects on labor quantity at 2109.8 km from the northernmost part of China, respectively. Furthermore, Confucian culture (CC) weakens the impact of HSR on labor market especially for South China except strengthens that on northern labor quality. Therefore, the labor mobility between North and South China is the result of the combined effect of HSR’s thrust and CC’s pull, so policymakers should strengthen the construction of HSR network and increase the investment in southern education and northern public cultural construction to reduce barriers of labor mobility between North and South China.

Suggested Citation

  • Xinyuan Wang & Daisheng Tang & Yahong Liu & Tao Bu, 2023. "The impact of high-speed railway on labor market between the North and South: evidence from China," The Annals of Regional Science, Springer;Western Regional Science Association, vol. 71(2), pages 487-515, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:anresc:v:71:y:2023:i:2:d:10.1007_s00168-022-01178-y
    DOI: 10.1007/s00168-022-01178-y
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    More about this item

    Keywords

    J61; R12; R23;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J61 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers - - - Geographic Labor Mobility; Immigrant Workers
    • R12 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - General Regional Economics - - - Size and Spatial Distributions of Regional Economic Activity; Interregional Trade (economic geography)
    • R23 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - Household Analysis - - - Regional Migration; Regional Labor Markets; Population

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