The Effects Of Inter-provincial Migration On Industrial Structure Upgrading And Optimization

Labor movement changes resource allocation between sectors and across regions,which leads to industrial structural change.Using pairwise-provincial migration data in Population Censuses(1995-2015),this paper examines the intensive and extensive marginal effects of inter-provincial migration on industrial structure upgrading and optimization through panel-data model and panel instrumental variable model.This paper intends to research three questions,including how to measure industrial structure upgrading and optimization;based on the intensive aspect,how the number of inmigrants and the number of out-migrants can affect industrial structure upgrading and optimization;based on the extensive aspect,how the human capital of in-migrants can affect industrial structure upgrading and optimization.For the question about how to measure industrial structure upgrading and optimization,this paper first builds an evaluation system of industrial structure upgrading and optimization,that is,dividing it into three aspects: the results of industrial development,the form of industrial structure and the environmental cost of industrial development,which can be represented by 6 indicators,including real GDP per capita,percentage of tertiary industry output,percentage of third industry output,percentage of second industry employments,percentage of tertiary industry employments,the ratio of waste water discharge to total industrial output.Then uses SPSS factor analysis to analyse these six factors and calculate the scores of industrial upgrading and optimization as this paper's dependent variable.For the question about the extensive marginal effects of inter-provincial migration on industrial structure optimization and upgrading,this paper applicates panel-data model to do empirical research,while considering the fact that industrial structure may influence the number of inter-provincial migrants,the panel-data model exists endogeneity problem,this paper utilizes weighted least travelling time between provinces as the instrumental variable for the number of inter-provincial migrants.The results of panel instrumental variable model demonstrate that the number of immigrants has a positive and statistically significant effect on industrial upgrading and optimization,while the number of emmigrants has a negative and statistically significant effect,indicating the “Brain Drain” problem of the inter-provincial mobility in China.For the question about the intensive marginal effects of inter-provincial migration on industrial structure optimization and upgrading,this paper uses a new method that is different from traditional method,employing the concept of “Human Capital of Immigrants”.We first utilizes four methods to measure the human capital of immigrants,including the product of the number of immigrants and the average education year of immigrants or the percentage of immigrants who receives education above middle school or the percentage of immigrants who receives education above high school or the percentage of immigrants who receives education above college.Then this paper carries out regressions through fixed-effect panel-data model and panel instrumental variable model.The results show that the human capital of immigrants statistically promotes industrial structure upgrading and optimization,and no matter which method is used to measure the educational level of inter-provincial immigrants the results remain robust.What's more the quality of immigrants matters more than the quantity of immigrants.These results show that the inter-provincial immigrants as the basic production factor is of great importance to the adjustment of industrial structure,the adoption of certain policies to effectively guide and promote high-education population to mobile across regions will improve the level of industrial structure upgrading and optimization in China as a whole.