A Study On Impacts Of Transportation Infrastructure On Regional Economic Convergence In Yangtze River

Transportation infrastructure as the space vector of the flow of production factors and the link of regional economy, it is an important factor which can influence the regional economic development and regional economic convergence.In the Yangtze River Delta, the spatial distribution of that large-scale transportation infrastructure is different and the trend of the regional economic development is good but not balanced. Based on the above these, this paper study on the impacts of transportation infrastructure on regional economic convergence in Yangtze River Delta by using the panel data of16cities in Yangtze River Delta from1999to2010.Using production function and the convergence equation analysis framework, we introduce a series of control variable, such as the degree of openness, the degree of market, government expenditure and industrial structure. Especially considering the spatial dependence or the difference influence of space overflow on the regional economic growth, we also introduce the space weight as a control variable, which makes the model more strong ability to explain.We get the following conclusions:(A) Within the Yangtze River Delta region, it does not have a convergence or absolute β convergence, but have β convergence of conditions. In control of some variables, the convergence trend exists, meanwhile the income gap is moderate.(B) Transport infrastructure has a positive impact on the regional economic convergence, and the growth rate of per capita GDP, but with economic development, the effect of transportation infrastructure on economic growth shows diminishing scale.(C) Material capital, government spending and market level play as significant roles in promoting regional economic convergence, but the role of foreign direct investment (FDI) is not so significant. On the contrary, Human capital leads to the divergence in the economic growth of the Yangtze River Delta region.