High-speed Railway Construction Level,Labor Mobility And Urban-rural Income Gap

High-speed rail is an important national transportation infrastructure and a major livelihood project.In the construction of transportation power,high-speed rail is playing a leading role.According to the Medium-and Long-term Railway Network Plan（2016-2030）,China will complete a high-speed railway network with eight horizontal and eight vertical lines by 2030.From the perspective of income distribution effect brought by high-speed railway construction,this paper aims to explore the direct and indirect impact of high-speed railway construction on urban-rural income gap,in order to provide some theoretical and data support for China to further reduce urban-rural income gap and promote urban-rural integration construction faster and better.Based on the data of various provinces in China from 2009 to 2019,this paper first adopts the individual fixed effect model to conduct benchmark regression analysis on the direct and indirect impacts of high-speed railway construction level on urban-rural income gap,and then analyzes the direct and indirect impacts of high-speed railway construction level on urban-rural income gap respectively.In the direct impact,this paper considers the geographical conditions and resource endowments of different regions,so the heterogeneity analysis of the three regions in China is carried out.In the indirect analysis,considering that the current high-speed railway is mainly for passenger transportation,it has contributed to the flow of labor force between urban and rural areas and between regions to a certain extent,and finally affected the urban-rural income gap.To explore this effect and contribution,the empirical analysis of the mediation effect of labor flow is added.In addition,in exploring the reasons behind labor mobility,it is worth mentioning that housing price,as a basic cost of living,is related to labor mobility and urban-rural income gap,so housing price is used as the threshold variable to conduct a double panel threshold model analysis.This paper innovatively selects the core variable of high-speed rail operating mileage.Different from previous papers,this paper not only analyzes the direct influence mechanism of HSR construction level on the urban-rural income gap,but also analyzes the indirect influence mechanism of HSR construction level on the urban-rural income gap with the help of the intermediary index of labor mobility.Found in the analysis of mechanism of indirect effects,alleviate the urban and rural income inequality should be focus on promoting the flow of rural labor force,and the flow of this Labour threshold characteristics,therefore,double panel threshold model was used to study the under the influence of labor flow,high-speed rail construction level and a simple linear relationship between the income gap between urban and rural areas.Combined with theoretical and empirical analysis,the following conclusions can be drawn :（1）regardless of whether the variable of labor mobility is included,the construction level of high-speed railway restrains the widening of urban-rural income gap to some extent.（2）The impact of the construction level of high-speed railway on the urban-rural income gap in east,West and Central China presents heterogeneity characteristics,but in general,the construction level of high-speed railway helps to narrow the urban-rural income gap within the region.（3）Labor mobility plays a partial intermediary role in the indirect impact of HSR construction level on the urban-rural income gap,and the role is 10.7%.（4）The impact of labor mobility caused by the construction level of high-speed rail on the urban-rural income gap has a double housing price threshold.