Research On The Impact Of Shale Gas Development On Regional Economic Growth And Employment ——Based On The Perspective Of Resource Curse

China is facing the challenge of increasing dependence on natural gas and threatening energy security.As an unconventional natural gas,shale gas is the best substitute for traditional natural gas.China has the largest recoverable shale gas resource in the world,and through the formulation of supporting policies,it has promoted the exploration and exploitation of shale gas,and successively built Fuling Shale Gas Field,Weiyuanrong Shale Gas Field and Changning Shale Gas Demonstration Area.At the same time,the impact of shale gas development on regional economy has also become the focus.According to the traditional economic growth theory,countries or regions with excellent natural resource endowment can usually play a comparative advantage to promote local economic growth and employment.However,from the perspective of resource curse,shale gas development may lead to sluggish local economic growth and decline in employment absorption capacity.In this paper,Fuling District of Chongqing is taken as the research sample.Fuling District is the location of Fuling Shale Gas Field,the largest shale gas field in China.Firstly,this paper uses the Synthetic Control Method(SCM)to study the impact of shale gas development on the per capita GDP growth rate and the number of on-the-job workers in Urban Non-private units in Fuling District,and carries out a placebo test.Then,the Resource Abundance Index(RAI)is introduced as an independent variable,and a series of control variables are introduced based on the transmission mechanism theory of resource curse.By using the time series model,this paper estimates the direction of the effect of resource abundance on per capita GDP growth rate and employment growth rate,and judges whether there is Resource Curse effect due to the development of shale gas in Fuling District.According to the change direction and size of the RAI coefficient after the introduction of control variables,the transmission path of resource curse in Fuling District is obtained.The results show that: firstly,since the large-scale exploitation of shale gas began in 2012,the development of shale gas has led to the decline of per capita GDP growth rate and the number of employees in urban non-private units in Fuling District,indicating that shale gas development has a negative impact on the economy.Secondly,from the perspective of resource curse,this paper introduces RAI,and finds that shale gas resources have a negative effect on per capita GDP growth rate and employment growth rate.The main transmission mechanism of resource curse effect is the shock on manufacturing industry,namely Dutch Disease.Thirdly,through the introduction of control variables,we find that education and science and technology expenditure can alleviate the resource curse effect,promote the growth rate of per capita GDP,and bring about the increase of employment growth rate.In view of the existence and transmission path of resource curse in Fuling District,this paper puts forward the following policy suggestions: promoting the diversified development of industry,developing shale gas deep processing industry,coordinating the benefit distribution between government and enterprises,strengthening the expenditure of science and technology and education,formulating the minimum employment ratio of enterprises to local residents,and formulating the evaluation system of shale gas development on social economy and environmental impact.