Abstract:
Using a panel dataset of 280 Chinese prefecture cities for the years 2000-2013 and the difference-in-differences estimation approach, this paper investigates the causal impact of the construction of high-speed rails on city economic growth, explores the lag effect and spatial spillover effect of the high-speed rails project. In particular, we address the endogeneity issue of the selection of high-speed rails project by utilizing instrumental estimation approach. We find that high-speed rails significantly promote economic growth of the cities, and also the high-speed rails project generates positive spillover effect on the neighboring cities. On average, the treated cities obtain a higher rate of economic growth (at a rate of 2.7 percentage points) than the control cities; and the spillover effect of the high-speed rails project brings 2 percentage points of higher economic growth rate for cities having high-speed rails in their neighboring regions than the rest of the control cities. Our further analysis also highlights that the high-speed rails promote industry upgrading and accelerate urbanization process.
刘勇政, 李岩. 中国的高速铁路建设与城市经济增长[J]. 金融研究, 2017, 449(11): 18-33.
LIU Yongzheng, LI Yan. High-speed Rails and City Economic Growth in China. Journal of Financial Research, 2017, 449(11): 18-33.
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