Research On The Impact Of High-Speed Rail On Regionaleconomic Integration

Since the State Council defined the scope of the Yangtze River Delta Urban Agglomeration in 2016,the scope of the Yangtze River Delta has expanded from 16 cities to 26 cities.Since most of the cities that later joined the Yangtze River Delta are located in the marginal areas of Jiangsu,Zhejiang and Anhui Province,they did not enjoy the policy advantages of the Yangtze River Delta Coordination Committee in the early days.Coupled with the geographical location and other factors,there is a greater economic integration level gap between this cities and coastal areas.The gap makes the expanded Yangtze River Delta more economically “strong in the east and weak in the west”,and the “core-periphery” spatial structure is remarkable.At the same time,the construction of HighSpeed Rail in the Yangtze River Delta has accelerated in recent years,and the coverage of the HighSpeed Rail network has continued to increase,connecting more and more peripheral cities.Under this background,exploring the impact of High-Speed Rail on strengthening the connection between the core area of the Yangtze River Delta and peripheral cities and promoting their economic integration may have certain planning and policy implications.This article aims to measure and analyze the development of the economic integration of the Yangtze River Delta through relevant literature and research methods,and analyze the impact of the opening and operation of the HighSpeed Rail on its economic integration in conjunction with the development process of the HighSpeed Rail in the Yangtze River Delta.On the basis of elaborating relevant theories and sorting out literature reviews,this paper believes that the impact of High-Speed Rail on regional economic integration is reflected in the increase in accessibility,which leads to the reduction in transportation costs,the promotion of population and economic and trade exchanges,and the breaking of barriers to factor mobility.It is conducive to the connection between cities and the expansion of the market,and ultimately promoting regional economic integration.Further,I gave a brief introduction to the development process of economic integration in the Yangtze River Delta,and selected some regional economic integration measurement indicators from the perspective of market,industry and economy to calculate and analyze the situation of economic integration development in the Yangtze River Delta from 2001 to 2016,each indicators show that the degree of economic integration in the Yangtze River Delta is increasing overall,and the gap between cities is narrowing,but there are unstable factors in the process of market and industry integration.In the empirical analysis part,I selected the market potential as a representative measure of regional economic integration.First,I carried out empirical analysis by constructing a multi-DID method model in econometrics.The benchmark regression results show that the opening of HighSpeed Rail plays a significant role in promoting the economic integration of High-Speed Rail cities.Then I divided the cities according to the geographical location and city size,and found that the opening of the High-Speed Railway has less impact on the economic integration of core cities than peripheral cities,and it also has less impact on large cities than small and medium-sized cities.Subsequently,the robustness test of this paper uses three methods: First,the replacement of HighSpeed Rail variables with the number of High-Speed Rail stations and the number of High-Speed Rail routes;Second,the use of instrument variable tests,including the existing planned High-Speed Rail routes and geographic slopes;Third,a placebo test,by changing the opening time of HighSpeed Rail.The three methods all support the robustness of the benchmark regression estimation results.Finally,based on empirical test results,I gave relevant suggestions that the local government should increase the investment and construction of High-Speed Rail,promote the construction of "High-Speed Rail Urban Agglomerations",and should also strengthen inter-regional cooperation to promote the flow of factors for regional economic integration,which will provide policy support for the stable development of regional economic integration in Yangtze River Delta.