| Based on the stage characteristics of Chinese economic development and the call of the 19 th National Congress of the Communist Party of China to vigorously develop the modern service industry,this article uses high-speed rail data and enterprise data of CSMAR database to study the impact of modern transportationhigh-speed rail on the labor productivity of service companies.The empirical results show that the connection of high-speed railway can increase the labor productivity of service industry enterprises.Based on the four forms of service trade defined by the WTO,the division of labor proposed by Adam Smith in "The Wealth of Nations" to improve labor productivity,Marshall externality and Jacobs externality,and Krugman’s "core-periphery" model and other theories,we proposes the following two hypotheses: cities with high-speed railway connections have higher labor productivity in tradable service companies;the larger the city in which tradable service companies are located,the more productivity increases.The empirical results support the above two hypotheses.The effect of high-speed railways on the labor productivity of service companies is more obvious in the tradable service industry,and tradable service companies in large cities can benefit more from highspeed rail connections.In order to solve the possible endogenous problems in the construction of high-speed railways,this paper draws on the existing literature and adopts the method of controlling the per capita GDP of the city where the company is located and excluding the sample of big cities.The regression results still support the above conclusions.This paper also further studies the mechanism through how high-speed railways promote the improvement of labor productivity of service enterprises.The empirical results show that high-speed railways can improve the labor productivity of enterprises by improving the level of enterprise division of labor.On the basis of empirical evidence,this article puts forward two policy recommendations.First,we can improve the business model of high-speed rail and reduce fares appropriately.Second,cities should explore their own comparative advantages. |
