Research On The Impact Of High-speed Rail Development On The Transformation And Upgrade Of China’s Manufacturing Industry

Since the financial crisis,China’s manufacturing industry has faced dual pressures from the return of high-end manufacturing industries in developed countries and the rise of low-end manufacturing industries in developing countries.However,Most of China’s manufacturing industries are still at the low end of the "smile curve",at the expense of consuming natural resources and destroying the environment,which is very detrimental to China’s economic development.Therefore,the manufacturing industry urgently needs to find an effective path for transformation and upgrading to realize the transformation from large to strong.With the rapid development of China’s economy,the construction of transportation infrastructure has been greatly improved,and the construction of high-speed rail has also made great progress,which has changed China’s development pattern,reduced transportation costs,promoted the flow of factors between cities and regions,and provided new opportunities for the transformation and upgrading of the manufacturing industry.This article first analyzes the mechanism by which the development of high-speed rail affects the transformation and upgrading of the manufacturing industry from three aspects: promoting the agglomeration of producer services,promoting the transfer of factors,and improving technological innovation capabilities on the basis of reviewing related classic theories.Secondly,it analyzes the development history and status quo of high-speed rail and manufacturing industry,and uses the method of comparative analysis to study the difference in manufacturing development between high-speed rail cities and non-high-speed rail cities.Next,the panel data of 284 prefecture-level cities in China from 2003 to2018 are used for empirical testing.First,the benchmark regression was carried out through the double difference method,and it was found that the development of high-speed rail is generally conducive to the transformation and upgrading of the manufacturing industry,with an impact coefficient of 0.0051,and passed Statistical test at the 5% level.Second,analysis of heterogeneity.Taking into account the differences in the natural conditions and economic development levels of various regions in China,the three major regions were regressed separately,and it was found that the high-speed rail has the most obvious promotion effect on the transformation and upgrading of the manufacturing industry in the eastern region,with an impact coefficient of 0.0055 and passing Statistical test at the 1% level.The city’s geographic location will have a certain impact on the manufacturing industry.Therefore,we analyze the heterogeneity of the city from whether the city belongs to the “eight vertical and eight horizontal” main lines.The results found that the development of high-speed rail does not significantly promote the transformation and upgrading of the manufacturing industry in the main-line and non-main-line cities;the development level of the city will also have a certain impact on the transformation and upgrading of the manufacturing industry.Therefore,we conducted regressions on Tier 1,2,3,4,and 5 cities,and found that high-speed rail has a significant role in promoting the transformation and upgrading of manufacturing in Tier 3cities.Third,the robustness test.In order to examine whether the benchmark model estimation results are general,we use three methods:PSM-DID test,"counterfactual" test,and replacement sample test to test the robustness.The results once again prove the accuracy of the benchmark estimation results.Finally,the article puts forward four countermeasures and suggestions for the transformation and upgrading of the manufacturing industry under the development of high-speed rail.