DOI: 10.17026/dans-2zn-vdu9
title: The Impact of the Opening of High-speed Railway on the Local Government's Industrial Land Supply Strategy —— Empirical Investigation Based on Panel Data of 269 Cities in China

description: Over the past 40 years of reform and opening up, China has rapidly grown from an agricultural country to the world’s largest industrial country and the largest manufacturing country. However, while the industry is developing rapidly, it is also accompanied by the poor quality of industrial development such as insufficient upgrading and transformation of the industrial structure. Under China's current land system design framework, various local governments have conflicting areas in the supply of industrial land. In reality, local governments often formulate differentiated industrial land supply strategies to respond to changes in the external environment or at least include established goals such as industrial transformation and upgrading. Instead, industrial development is closely related to the construction of transportation infrastructure. With its advantages such as fast speed, punctuality and unaffected by bad weather conditions, the high-speed rail has a profound impact on the development of China’s regional economic structure and people’s production and lifestyles. It can be seen that the huge changes in the regional economic geography brought about by the opening of the high-speed rail. The land supply strategy of the local government, especially the industrial land supply strategy, will inevitably be changed accordingly, which will affect the national economy, especially the implementation of the industrial breakthrough development strategy. Briefly speaking, on the one hand, the opening of high-speed rail can release cargo transportation routes squeezed by passenger transportation demand, thereby reducing transportation costs, speeding up the frequency of interchange of mobile elements, and encouraging industrial enterprises to gather in the opened cities for production activities, which may prompt local governments to increase areas. Industrial land supply scale. On the other hand, the opening of high-speed rail will change the accessibility between cities and increase the land rent of cities along the route. In view of the different land cost sensitivity of various industries, changes in urban land rent will encourage different industrial enterprises to relocate or agglomerate, which may prompt local governments. The government changes the supply structure of regional industrial land. It is worth noting that the regions are not independent individuals, and there is significant spatial interaction in the industrial land supply strategy between local governments. This means that when the opening of the high-speed rail prompts a change in the supply strategy of industrial land for local governments in cities, due to the strategic interaction between local governments, local governments in neighboring cities are likely to adopt "imitation" or "replacement" strategies for feedback. That is, the opening of the high-speed rail has not only a direct impact on the local government's industrial land supply strategy, but also a spatial spillover effect. Then, how does the opening of the high-speed rail affect the local government's industrial land supply strategy? Is there any space overflow impact? What is the impact mechanism behind it? The answers to these questions are not only conducive to theoretically revealing the impact mechanism of the opening of high-speed rail on land supply, enriching existing transportation infrastructure and local economic development related research, but also helping to provide scientific references for improving local government land supply policies in practice. Especially under the pressure of slowing economic growth and focusing on upgrading, transformation and high-quality development, it provides a reference for local governments to rationally use the effect of high-speed rail to upgrade and transform the industrial structure and high-quality sustainable development. It has certain theories and reality. significance. Therefore, this research first analyzes the impact mechanism of the opening of high-speed rail on the industrial land supply strategy of local governments from the theoretical level, and uses the macro and micro data sources such as the high-speed rail opening data, land transfer data and related statistical yearbook data during 2007-2016 to construct separately Multi-period DID and spatial DID measurement models to empirically test the impact of the opening of high-speed rail on the local government's industrial land supply strategy (supply scale and supply structure) and its spatial spillover effect (that is, whether it also affects the industrial land supply strategy of neighboring cities). The results of the research are as follows: (1) The opening of high-speed rail releases freight transportation lines that are squeezed by passenger demand and reduces freight transportation costs. According to the theory of new economic geography, this "transportation cost effect" will significantly accelerate the frequency of inter-regional flow of economic factors (labor, technology, investment, etc.), and encourage industrial enterprises pursuing the "local market effect" to gather in open cities for production Activities to increase the degree of industrial agglomeration in the opened cities. As a result,local governments tend to adopt the supply strategy of "incremental supply scale" of industrial land, that is, increase the supply scale of regional industrial land. The empirical results of applying the multi-period DID model show that the opening of high-speed rail has a significant positive impact on the scale of local government industrial land supply, which verifies the aforementioned theoretical analysis. (2) The high-speed rail has achieved breakthroughs in a variety of cutting-edge transportation technologies, changed the accessibility between cities, and promoted land appreciation and land prices in cities along the route. According to the theory of urban rent bidding, under the influence of the “land cost effect”, it will drive the original low-efficiency, low-efficiency, and low-competitive traditional industrial enterprises to choose marginal areas to produce or move out, and at the same time, they will also be more affected by land costs. Small high-tech industrial companies gather in cities where high-speed rail is open. As a result, local governments tend to adopt the supply strategy of "advanced supply structure" for industrial land, that is,limit the scale of land supply for traditional industrial industries and increase the scale of land supply for high-tech industries. The empirical results of applying the multi-period DID model show that the opening of the high-speed rail has a significant negative and positive impact on the land supply scale of traditional industrial industries and high-tech industries, respectively, which verifies the aforementioned theoretical analysis. (3) According to the theory of strategic interaction between local governments, due to the existence of information spillover, resource flow and scale competition mechanism, there is a significant spatial interaction in the industrial land supply strategy between local governments.Therefore, when the opening of high-speed rail prompts changes in the supply strategy of industrial land for local governments in opening cities, due to the strategic interaction between local governments, local governments in neighboring cities (especially cities without high-speed rail) will adopt "imitating" or "replacement" strategies. Strategy for feedback. The empirical results of the application of the spatial DID model show that the opening of high-speed rail will promote the adoption of "incremental supply scale" (increasing the scale of industrial land supply) and "advanced supply structure" (increasing the scale of high-tech industry land supply). The "imitation" strategy verifies the aforementioned theoretical analysis. In view of this, the following relevant suggestions are put forward: (1) In theory, the evaluation of the impact of high-speed rail opening should not be limited to a research paradigm that regards high-speed rail opening cities as closed and independent individuals, and the possible spatial spillover effects of high-speed rail opening should be fully considered, so as to more comprehensively evaluate the real effect of the opening of high-speed rail on economic activities. (2) In practice, it is necessary not only to coordinate the positive and negative effects of the opening of high-speed rail, scientifically construct a high-speed railway network of "eight horizontal and eight vertical", formulate targeted policies, and actively promote the reform of the industrial land supply side and standardize the existing land Supply methods, actively explore new supply methods, promote the reform of local government functions, and improve relevant policies and laws.