| Since the reform and opening up,China’s transportation infrastructure has achieved leapfrog development.In the past ten years,high-speed rail has developed rapidly and become a prominent representative of transportation infrastructure.The opening of the high-speed rail can greatly shorten the transportation time and reduce the transportation cost,which has an important impact on the agglomeration and upgrade of industry.In addition,the international environment facing China’s manufacturing industry has been deteriorating,making China’s manufacturing industry,which is already at the low end of the global value chain,facing severe challenges.The manufacturing-based industrial system urgently needs structural transformation,upgrade and optimization.The Fifth Plenary Session of the 19th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China held in October 2020 proposed to accelerate the development of a modern industrial system,promote the optimization and upgrade of the economic system,adhere to the focus of economic development on the real economy,and unswervingly build a manufacturing powerhouse.Therefore,the upgrade of manufacturing is still an arduous task for China during the 14th Five-Year Plan period and for a longer period in the future.As the supporting industry of manufacturing,producer services will transmit the impact of high-speed rail on its agglomeration and productivity enhancement to manufacturing and promote the upgrade of manufacturing.This paper puts high-speed rail opening,producer services agglomeration and manufacturing upgrade into the same framework,and systematically demonstrates the impact of high-speed rail opening on the upgrade of manufacturing and the mediating effect of producer services agglomeration.First,we use descriptive analysis methods to make a preliminary analysis of the overall level,changing trends and regional differences of China’s high-speed rail opening,producer services agglomeration,and manufacturing upgrade.The analysis shows that,during the sample period,China’s high-speed rail construction is booming,the agglomeration level of producer services has generally risen,and the upgrade of manufacturing has improved as a whole.There is a certain trend of common changes among the three.Secondly,we theoretically analyze the transmission mechanism by which the opening of high-speed rail affects the upgrade of manufacturing based on industrial agglomeration theory and industrial upgrade theory,including the direct transmission mechanism and the indirect transmission mechanism with producer services agglomeration as an intermediary.The research finds that the opening of high-speed rail can not only directly promote manufacturing upgrade by accelerating the flow of production factors between regions and facilitating market integration,but also indirectly promote manufacturing upgrade by contributing to the agglomeration of producer services.Finally,we use empirical analysis methods to study the impact of high-speed rail opening on the upgrade of manufacturing,the impact of high-speed rail opening on the agglomeration of producer services,and the mediating effect of producer services agglomeration with the sample data of prefecture-level cities in China from 2003 to2018.The results indicate that the opening of high-speed rail significantly promotes manufacturing upgrade in cities along the lines by accelerating the flow of production factors between regions and facilitating market integration,and this impact has significant time cumulative effect,positive spatial spillover effect,and regional and urban heterogeneity;The opening of high-speed rail significantly promotes producer services agglomeration in cities along the lines by accelerating the flow of high-end production factors between regions and facilitating market integration,and this impact has significant time cumulative effect,positive spatial spillover effect,and regional,urban and industrial heterogeneity;The agglomeration of producer services significantly promotes manufacturing upgrade,and the impact has significant nonlinear characteristics and positive spatial spillover effect;The opening of high-speed rail significantly promotes manufacturing upgrade in cities along the lines by facilitating producer services agglomeration,and the mediating effect of producer services agglomeration has significant nonlinear characteristics and regional,urban and industrial heterogeneity.The innovations of this paper are as follows.First,this paper systematically sorts out and demonstrates the relationship between high-speed rail opening,producer services agglomeration,and manufacturing upgrade,and constructs a theoretical framework,which enriches the existing theories on the relationship between transportation infrastructure,industrial agglomeration and industrial upgrade.Second,this paper constructs a manufacturing upgrade indicator system from the perspective of economic and environmental benefits,which measures the manufacturing upgrade from a broader perspective and makes the indicator construction closer to the reality of China.Third,this paper demonstrates the transmission mechanism of high-speed rail opening on the upgrade of manufacturing and the agglomeration of producer services from the paths of production factors flow and market integration,which provides richer empirical evidence for the research on industrial upgrade effect and industrial agglomeration effect of high-speed rail.Fourthly,this paper deeply analyzes time cumulative effect and spatial spillover effect of high-speed rail opening on manufacturing upgrade and producer services agglomeration,deepening the relevant research on the economic effects of major cross-regional infrastructures.Fifthly,this paper systematically demonstrates the mediating effect and its nonlinear characteristics of producer services agglomeration in the impact of high-speed rail opening on manufacturing upgrade from the perspective of servitization,expanding the research on the transmission mechanism of high-speed rail opening on manufacturing upgrade and providing new ideas for manufacturing upgrade. |
