Population Size,House Price And Total Factor Productivity

This article take the Fare(1994)DEA-Malnquist index method to measure total factor productivity levels in 35 large and medium cities in our country,based on the city level data research population scale direct effects and indirect effects of TFP change,the nonparametric method need not set a specific output equation,and can decompose the total factor productivity change into the technical progress and technical efficiency change,and population size are investigated respectively total factor productivity,the influence of the technical progress and technical efficiency change.At the same time,it innovatively introduces the variable of housing price,proposes the theoretical transmission mechanism that the expansion of urban population will indirectly inhibit the growth of total factor productivity by increasing the local housing price,and makes an empirical test by using the intennediary effect model.Based on the analysis of theory and influence mechanism,this paper puts forward the following two theoretical assumptions:1.The expansion of urban population scale will improve the total factor productivity of the region.2.The expansion of vurban population size indirectly reduces the total factor productivity of the region by raising the housing price.Through empirical analysis of variables,this paper draws the following conclusions:First,the expansion of urban population size promotes the improvement of urban total factor productivity.Specifically,population size has a significant positive effect on TFP growth.For every 1 million increase in urban population size,total factor productivity increases by 0.097 units.Population expansion by promoting technical progress(TC)and the technical efficiency level(EC),in turn,improve the total factor productivity,the urban population scale growth per 1 million people,technical progress growth 0.053 units,technical efficiency growth 0.027 units,the expansion of the urban population scale through "accumulation effect" and"competition effects" significantly promoted the technical progress and technical efficiency improvement,so as to enhance the total factor productivity in the region.Secondly,the expansion of urban population size indirectly inhibits the improvement of total factor productivity by raising the housing price of the region.Specifically,based on the mediation effect model analysis found that the expansion of the urban population scale will significantly inprove the region's housing price to income ratio,and high prices will distort the market price,the labor and capital due to the price signal distortion error distribution,thus makes the factor allocation efficiency of the whole economy gets worse,the rise in house prices by inhibiting the technical efficiency improvements,in turn,reduces the total factor productivity.Thirdly,the promotion effect of urban population expansion on total factor productivity of eastern cities is obviously stronger than the national average level.Specifically,the population size of eastern cities in China is obviously larger than that of central and western cities,and the "agglomeration effect" and "competition effect" of population size play a greater role in eastern cities,so the positive effect of population size on total factor productivity in eastern regions is stronger than that in central and western regions.At the same time,the housing price in the easterm region also plays a masking effect between urban population size and total factor productivity.Moreover,since the expansion of population size in the eastern region has a stronger positive effect on the ratio of housing price to income,the indirect inhibition effect of the expansion of population size on total factor productivity in the eastern region is greater.