The Impact Of High Speed Rail On The Economic Growth Of China's County

The impact of transportation infrastructure on economic growth has always been the focus of scholars at home and abroad.In recent years,the state has made great efforts to develop high-speed railways and the impact of high-speed railways on economic growth has drawn more and more attention.In order to solve this endogenous problem of the opening of the high-speed railway,this paper uses data from the county.In this paper,the opening of high-speed railway in county-level cities is used as quasi-natural experiments to explore the effect of the opening of high-speed railway on economic growth,and explore the reasons for these effects and the influence with 92 counties in 2003-2015 panel data using DID model.The empirical results show that the opening of the high-speed railway has a significant negative effect on the economic growth of the county-level cities.On average,with other conditions unchanged,the opening of high-speed railway has reduced the county's economic growth rate by 4.263 percentage points.In order to explore the internal reasons for the negative effect of the opening of high-speed railway on county economic growth,this paper controls the distance between "and the central city".The results show that the economic growth of the counties with different distances from the central cities of the high speed railway is different.The distance from the central city is less than the mean,and the farther from the central city,the negative effect is greater.The distance from the central city is greater than the mean,and the farther from the central city,the smaller the negative effect.The results of these empirical analyses are consistent with the conclusion of theoretical analysis.In theory,the effect of high-speed railway opening on local economic development is the effect of the cluster effect on the surrounding area,the diffusion effect of the central city and the effect of siphon effect.The county town near the center city is also affected by diffusion and siphoning,and the diffusion effect is attenuated faster than the siphon effect.Therefore,the distance from the central city is less than the mean,and the farther from the central city,the negative effect is greater.At the county level far from the central city,the diffusion effect and siphon effect of the central city are very small.The opening of the high-speed railway has made the county a small central city,and has made economic growth through its agglomeration effect on the surrounding counties.In order to make a more in-depth study of this conclusion,this paper controls the transportation endowment of the county.The results show that the transportation endowment,measured by highway density and other indicators,has a significant effect on the economic growth negative effect of high-speed railway.The better the transportation endowment,the less negative effect the high-speed rail will have on economic growth.In addition,this paper investigates the influence channels of the high speed railway on the county-level cities along the way,and concludes that the opening of high-speed railway may affect economic growth by reducing investment in fixed assets.Finally,according to the conclusion of empirical analysis,this paper put forward relevant suggestions.The main contribution and innovation of this paper: first,in order to solve the endogenous problem,this paper uses the county data to explore the impact of the high speed railway on the county economy.And the conclusion is of practical significance to guide the county economy.Second,this paper controls the traffic endowment to examine the net effect of high-speed railway on economic growth;Third,introduce the variable "distance from the central city" to explore the internal causes of the negative effect of high-speed railway on county economic growth.