Study On The Impact Of High Speed Rail On Regional Economic Agglomeration

Since1st Aug.2008, the first day of Beijing-Tianjin inter-city high-speed railway operation, the total mileage of Chinese railway has reached11028km. The HSR scaleh which is under construction has reached12,000km. China has become the country which has the longest operation mileage and the largest under construction scale. Chinese high speed rail network has initially formed. Many studies at home and abroad show that economic agglomeration is a trend and representation of regional economy. It is of great significant that studying about the effect of high speed railway on regional economic agglomeration for understanding in depth regional economic development.The effect of high speed railway on economic agglomeration and economic development is an interesting question. This thesis intended to study on this question, to discuss the effect of high speed railway on economic agglomeration and to reveal its scope and degree.The thesis concludes relevant theories, analyzes the influencing mechanism and calculates the degree of the effect with factor analysis and multiple linear regression. In addition, the thesis verified the contribution of economic agglomeration to the economic development of Jianan and Dezhou. The result suggests that although the opening of high speed railways has a certain influence on regional economic agglomeration, there is still a certain distance between the developed countries and China in the degree of influence. In order to find out the reasons, the thesis compares Chinese high speed railways with Japanese shinkansen to point out the lack of Beijing-Shanghai railway and the existing problems about planning, constructing and operation.After empirical analysis and comparative study, this paper arrives to the following conclusions:The opening of high speed railways shrink journey time, strengthen the flow of human resources and other factors of production and reinforce the agglomeration effect of secondary&tertiary industry in the region. In order to give full play to the cohesion of high-speed railway, this paper makes the following proposals:1. Ministry of communication shall specify the strategic significance of the construction of the high-speed railway, persisting in planning and constructing high speed railways by the way of integrating point and sphere.2. To develope high speed railways appropriately and to construct efficient perfect railway network, thereby facilitating regional economic agglomeration and the radiation ability of the central cities to drive balanced development of regional economy.3. To optimize high speed railway’s operation pattern, to introduce market mechanism to reasonably relax control over market access.