The Impact Of High-speed Rail Opening On Intergenerational Income Flow

With the economic growth,the gap between urban and rural areas,regional development and income distribution has widened,the phenomenon of unbalanced and inadequate development has become prominent,and many social problems have become increasingly apparent,one of which is the declining intergenerational mobility of income.With the increase of uncertainties in China’s economic development and the increasing downward risks of economic growth under the normal situation of the epidemic,promoting fairness and ensuring quality of the economy has become a proper solution to solve the social problems in China.As one of the biggest changes in China’s transportation history,the opening of highspeed railway has greatly boosted the development of China’s economy.For a long time,the transportation infrastructure represented by high-speed railway has been regarded as the engine of economic growth,especially in China’s vast territory,high-speed railway is the key to promote factor cycle and domestic market development,and is closely related to the construction of a "double cycle" new development model.In view of this,this paper empirically studies the economic effect of the opening of high-speed railway,and discusses whether the opening of high-speed railway can become a new force to narrow the income distribution gap and promote income equality.Based on the data of nine times China Health and Nutrition Surveys（CHNS）from1991 to 2015,this paper uses the Difference-in-difference method to study the effect of HSR opening on the existence of intergenerational income mobility.The results show that the opening of high-speed railway significantly promotes the intergenerational income mobility,and promotes the increase of offspring income higher than that of their parents,while hindering the downward mobility of offspring income.The results of mechanism test show that the opening of high-speed railway mainly promotes the intergenerational income flow through the offspring occupational mobility,offspring education and employment expansion brought by industrial agglomeration.At the same time,in eastern regions,northern regions and central cities,the promotion effect of high-speed railway opening on the intergenerational income mobility is stronger,and the effect of high-speed railway opening on the upward income mobility of children with younger age and lower educational background is also more significant.In addition,from the perspective of intergenerational income flow,the opening of high-speed rail also plays an important role in reducing income gap and poverty alleviation.The conclusion of this paper has important theoretical and practical significance for China to continue to speed up the construction of high-speed railway,promote regional coordinated development,promote the equality of opportunity between generations and realize the common prosperity of all people.