Abstract

New urbanization is an important starting point to promote the economic take-off of our country, and modern logistics is a huge engine of current economic development. Then, can the vigorous development of new-type urbanization revitalize the endogenous power of modern logistics and bring a subtle influence on the development of modern logistics? Based on this, using the panel data of 286 prefecture-level cities in China from 2009 to 2017 as the sample, through the construction of the experimental group and the control group, the propensity score matching-difference in difference (PSM-DID) method was used to evaluate the effect of the new urbanization policy, and the robustness test was conducted through the counterfactual model. Finally, it is concluded that the implementation of the new urbanization has a clear promotion effect on the development of modern logistics, and on this basis, corresponding suggestions are put forward.

1. Introduction

Building a well-off society in an all-round way is a key measure for realizing the Chinese nation’s great revival of the Chinese dream of national rejuvenation, and new urbanization is a powerful engine for a comprehensive well-off society. Since the reform and opening up, new urbanization has been continuously improved ¹. Especially since the announcement of the first batch of new urbanization pilots by the General Office of the National Development and Reform Commission in 2014, the construction of new urbanization has not only achieved fruitful results in theory, but also made leapfrog progress in practice, further clarifying the future of urbanization Development path.

At the same time that China's new urbanization hooves are developing steadily, how to scientifically understand the new urbanization is an urgent problem to be solved ². So where is the new urbanization road "new"? Premier Li Keqiang pointed out that the core of the new urbanization is the urbanization of people, and the key is to improve the quality of urbanization. Traditional urbanization focuses on "urban construction", ignoring the needs of the living subject-people, so new urbanization pays more attention to the people's sense of gain and happiness on the basis of traditional urbanization.

The construction of new urbanization requires a lot of manpower, material resources, and financial resources ³, and modern logistics can just meet the demand for these resources. Modern logistics refers to the integration of multiple links, such as information, transportation, warehousing, inventory, loading and unloading, etc. for integrated management, through the integration of the entire logistics link in order to achieve the minimum supply chain cost and provide customers with the best service. Especially in recent years, modern logistics has closely followed market demand and advocated green and environmental protection concepts. For example, the “four links and one reach” “back to box plan” is being carried out in an orderly manner. The concept of low-carbon sustainable environmental protection and the concept of ecological civilization in new urbanization co-incidentally, jointly contribute to the sustainable development of the economy.

Reasonable urbanization will provide important opportunities for economic and social development ⁴. Admittedly, the new urbanization provides an unprecedented development space for contemporary logistics development, such as perfect public infrastructure, convenient transportation routes, and smooth network technology, which provide a good platform for modern logistics. Therefore, based on the background of the steady progress of urbanization, how much impact it will have on modern logistics is the focus of the next analysis.

Regarding the relevant literature research between the new urbanization and the logistics industry, the academic community has fully discussed: Shu, J.L. ⁵ concluded that urbanization has a significant positive effect on the development of the circulation industry through VAR model analysis. Wei, H.M ⁶ showed through empirical analysis that urbanization can promote the development of the logistics industry, but the effect is not significant in the short term, and even accompanied by obstruction, it needs to be seen in the long term. Fan, G. ⁷ believes that logistics and supply chain are indispensable key parts in the future development of China, and logistics is an important means to promote the development of urbanization , and put forward related logistics solutions to the problems arising in the later stage of urbanization, and are committed to building new low-carbon, smart and harmonious new towns. Wang, Y.C. ⁸ took Hebei Province as the research object and found that the coordination between the new urbanization and regional logistics in Hebei Province is not high by using the coupled coordination degree model, And put forward suggestions on how to improve logistics capabilities in the context of new urbanization. Wang, F.Z. ⁹ demonstrated the co-integration relationship between logistics development and energy consumption, foreign trade, and urbanization in both closed and modern open economies. He believes that the development of urbanization and foreign trade can promote the development of the logistics industry. Therefore, the coordinated development of foreign trade and logistics should be strengthened to promote the urbanization rationally.

By combing the relevant literature, it is not difficult to find that most of the previous scholars' studies are theoretical studies, and lack of scientific quantitative methods for empirical research. Therefore, the research methods in this article can provide future research on new urbanization Corresponding research ideas.

2. Research Design

The difference in difference (DID) method is to treat a policy or event as a natural experiment, and use the DID model to quantitatively evaluate the effect of the implementation of the public policy or project. Ye, F. ¹⁰ proposed that the DID method has become a powerful tool for evaluating policy effects in recent years, and has been favored by scholars. In 2014, China announced a new urbanization pilot policy. Therefore, the effect of new urbanization on modern logistics can be regarded as a "quasi-natural experiment", which provides the premise for the implementation of the DID method.

When implementing the DID method, we need to construct two dummy variables: one is the dummy variable of the incentive group and the control group, and the other is the dummy variable of policy time. Therefore, the new urbanization pilot city is regarded as the incentive group of "natural experiment", defined as 1, and the non-pilot city as the control group, defined as 0. At the same time, according to the timing of the announcement of the new urbanization pilot policy, the selected year is divided into two stages before and after implementation. The new urbanization pilot policy was announced in 2014, so this article selects the time point as 2014. The year of 2014 and after is the year of policy occurrence, defined as 1, and before 2014 is defined as 0.Since the first batch of 64 new urbanization pilot lists involves prefectures, cities, counties, and towns, this article mainly uses prefecture-level city sample data as the research object, and deletes the county and town level data.

Accordingly, the baseline regression model is constructed as follows:

(1)

Where i represents the city, t represents the time. Freight_it as an explanatory variable, it represents an indicator of the development level of modern logistics. dt is a dummy variable of time. du is a dummy variable between groups. The interaction term du*dt represents the product of the time dummy variable and the dummy variable between groups. The estimated coefficient β₁ of du*dt in equation (1) reflects the effect of the pilot policy and is also the focus of the DID method. If the estimated coefficient is significantly greater than 0, it means that the new urbanization policy can significantly promote modern logistics industry development, otherwise it has no significant promotion effect. X_it represents a control variable and ε_it represents a random disturbance term.

Although the DID method can measure the effect of new urbanization on modern logistics, the use of this method needs to meet the prerequisite of a common trend. Since the reality is often affected by other factors, this condition may be difficult to achieve, so it will have a certain impact on the sample estimation results. Therefore, this paper introduces the Propensity Score Matching (PSM) proposed by Heckman et al. ¹¹ to solve the problem of co-trend between samples. PSM-DID first selects matching samples through propensity scores, that is, selects a matching sample group for the incentive group of the new urbanization policy by controlling multiple indicators. Through PSM, the matching difference can be reduced to achieve a similar natural experiment. Selecting a similar sample group for the incentive group implementing the new urbanization policy can well meet the common needs of the incentive group and the control group before the new urbanization policy is implemented the condition of the trend, which in turn provides a robust test for the benchmark regression model, helps to accurately measure the impact of new urbanization on modern logistics.

Based on the research of scholar Yao, J. ¹², this paper selects the regional GDP generated by the unit freight volume of various cities to measure the development level of modern logistics as the explanatory variable. Because the data of railway freight volume in prefecture-level cities is difficult to obtain after 2015, the freight volume in this article is the sum of road freight volume, water freight volume and civil air freight volume. There are many indicators that can be used as control variables in measuring the impact of new urbanization on modern logistics. After reading a large number of references and considering the difficulty of obtaining prefecture-level city data, the total retail sales of social consumer goods account for the proportion of GDP ¹³, GDP per capita ¹⁴, science and technology ¹⁵, the proportion of the tertiary industry to GDP ¹⁶. As a control variable in the study.In the following, they are respectively represented by retail, PGDP, tech and TGDP.

The sample data comes from the <<China City Statistical Yearbook>> of various years, the National Economic and Social Development Statistical Bulletin and the Guotai'an database. Some prefecture-level cities are missing data by interpolation. The prefecture-level cities with more data missing are directly eliminated (such as Sansha City in Hainan Province), and finally 286 prefecture-level cities have a total of 9 years of panel data. Except for the proportion of total retail sales of consumer goods in GDP, other variables are presented in the form of natural logarithms. Table 1 describes the main variables of the sample.

3. Empirical Analysis and Results

Regression on the above baseline model using DID method ¹⁷. The results are shown in Table 2. Model 1 reflects the net effect of new urbanization policies on modern logistics without the addition of other control variables. According to model 1, the net impact coefficient of new urbanization on modern logistics is 0.1851, and it is significant at the level of 1%, indicating that overall the new urbanization policy has a promoting effect on the development of modern logistics in China, but it still needs to join the core Variables further enhance the stability of the coefficient. In model 2, after adding control variables, new urbanization still has a positive effect on modern logistics, with an impact coefficient of 0.0789, which is significant at the level of 5%. Therefore, the included control variables have a strong explanation for the dependent variables.

When performing PSM analysis, the logit model first needs to estimate the propensity score value. Common matching methods include nearest neighbor matching, radius matching, and kernel matching. This paper mainly uses the kernel matching method. Simple matching is only the first step and cannot be directly used for result evaluation. The quality of matching still needs to be verified. Zhao, X.L. ¹⁸ pointed out that the balance test and the common support test are important basis for evaluating the matching quality of propensity scores. It is generally believed that the balance test is that the t value between the matched incentive group and the control group should not be significant, and the standard deviation is valid below 20%. Of course, the smaller the standard deviation, the higher the matching quality. If there is a significant difference between the two groups after matching, then the choice of variables should be reconsidered or the matching method should be replaced. According to the test results of the matching balance of propensity scores in Table 3, after matching, the absolute values of deviations of all control variables have dropped significantly, and the absolute values of deviations are all below 5%, indicating that there is no significant difference between the two groups of samples, and the matching quality is high, that is, a balanced matching sample is constructed.

Table 4 shows the results after PSM-DID analysis. According to the regression results, after matching, the results of du*dt regression are all positive. The influence coefficient without adding the control variable du*dt is 0.1851, and it is significant at the level of 1%. After adding the control variable, the net influence coefficient is 0.0811. It is significant at the 5% level, indicating that the new urbanization has a significant promotion effect on modern logistics. The result of PSM-DID estimation is not significantly different from the previous DID result, which further enhances the reliability of the empirical conclusion of this paper, that is, the impact of new urbanization construction on modern logistics is very significant.

A "counterfact test" ¹⁹ was used to further verify the impact of new urbanization on modern logistics. Taking the time before the implementation of the new urbanization policy as the new research period (2009-2013), 2010 and 2011 were set as the hypothetical implementation time of the new urbanization, and the analysis results are shown in Table 5. Model (1) is that 2010 is a hypothetical policy implementation time, that is, dt = 1 in 2010 and after, otherwise it is 0. It can be seen from the table that the net influence coefficient becomes 0.0133. Model (2) assumes that dt = 1 and the net impact coefficient is 0.0158 in 2011 and after. Both are not significant, further confirming the robustness of the previous conclusion.

4. Conclusion and Recommendations

New urbanization and modern logistics promote each other, coordinate development, and jointly promote the development of China's economy. Does the new urbanization policy really promote the development of modern logistics? This paper is the first to use panel data from 286 prefecture-level cities in China from 2009 to 2017, using PSM-DID to conduct an empirical analysis of the impact of new urbanization on modern logistics, and conducts a robust test using counterfactual methods. The study found that the pilot of new urbanization has brought a certain positive impact on the development of modern logistics.

In summary, in the context of new urbanization, how to promote the good and fast development of modern logistics, we mainly have the following recommendations:

1. During the steady progress of the new urbanization policy, it is necessary to maintain a stable economic operation. Economic development is the cornerstone, and healthy economic development is conducive to increasing residents’ income, stimulating residents’ further consumption, expanding domestic demand, and accelerating the speed of commodity circulation. Therefore, higher demands are placed on the development of logistics. Modern logistics should rationally arrange the logistics distribution center according to the new urbanization development plan, constantly improve the construction of related infrastructure, and promote the huge logistics system to operate reasonably and efficiently.

2. With the continuous optimization and upgrading of industrial structure during the development of new urbanization, modern logistics should seize the opportunity to take the rapid development train of industrial upgrading and accelerate the integration and development of related industries. Modern logistics is essentially a third-party service industry, and it should give full play to its own advantages. In the process of integration with the industry, it uses advanced logistics technologies such as Internet of Things technology, automation control system technology, and intelligent communication technology to provide professional service advantages. To provide industrial chain services from raw material procurement, production and processing, to product sales and waste product recycling for industrial development, helping companies reduce costs and improve economic efficiency.

3. The development of modern logistics should pay more attention to scientific and technological R & D investment. Especially on June 6, 2019, the official issuance of 5G network commercial license marks another major breakthrough in China's Internet technology milestone. In the process of the development of new urbanization, the improvement of science and technology has played a decisive role in improving the operational efficiency and reducing costs of the modern logistics industry. Therefore, modern logistics should continue to strengthen basic technology research, provide consumers with better quality services, and continuously enhance the sense of gain and happiness of the people.

Acknowledgements

This research was funded by the Discipline Group Construction Plan for Serving Industries Innovation”, Shanxi, P. R. China and Discipline Group Program of Intelligent Logistics Management for Serving Industries Innovation.

References