| The "Land Silk Road" has become the main route for commercial and cultural exchange between China and the Western world since Han Dynasty.However,with the rise of maritime transportation and the self-isolation during the Ming and Qing Dynasties,the Land Silk Road gradually lost its key role in the international trade and diplomacy.During the Industrial Revolution,the Eurasian Continental Bridge began to be constructed and restore the traffic on this route.However,this route was partially obstructed not only because of the uneven level of economic,cultural,and social development of countries along the route,but also due to the lack of unified trade and traffic regulations,as well as lack of communication among countries.The countries along the Silk Road,including China,Central Asia and West Asia,and Europe all have different factor endowments and resource endowments.If they strengthen communication with each other and improve resource allocation efficiency,a win-win situation will be achieved.With the proposal of the Silk Road Economic Belt Strategy,this ancient Silk Road has renewed its glory.Countries along the route have strengthened their communication and cooperation with each other.Node cities within the Silk Road Belt area have been actively integrated into this strategy and have improved infrastructure construction.The construction of Inland Ports,which works as key nodes to connect one city with other cities within the Silk Road Belt,has been paid much attention by local and central governments.The cities along the Silk Road Economic Belt are mostly inland-type cities.Unlike the coastal areas who taken the lead in developing an outward-oriented economy due to the location advantages since the reform and opening up policy,the inland areas whose development has been limited by the inconvenient transportation and location disadvantages.In order to revert the location disadvantages and the current situation of imbalanced development for inland areas,these inland cities began to construct inland ports and thus could be involved in the international logistics,transportation and trade,which would facilitate the development of regional economy.This paper takes the domestic node cities on the Silk Road Economic Belt as the research objects,and studies the impact of the construction of the inland ports on the regional economic growth.It will mainly focus on the following issues:1.The mechanism of the construction of inland ports in relation to economic growth;2.The dynamic correlation between the construction of inland ports and economic growth;3.The extent that how the construction of inland ports influences the economic growth.Through theoretical and empirical research,the following conclusions are obtained:(1)Mechanism of the construction of land and seaports for economic growthFirst of all,the improvement of transport infrastructure brought about by the construction of inland ports will help strengthen the regional communications,improve transportation efficiency and gradually facilitate the regions form the location advantages through spillover effects.Secondly,the development of the inland ports will improve industrial competitiveness and create economies of scale for port-centered industries through industrial clustering effect,as well as form mature industrial chains through industry correlation effect,so as to further promote regional economic growth.(2)Dynamic correlation between the construction of inland ports and regional economic growthThis paper selects data of 19 cities among the node cities on the Silk Road Economic Belt from 2001 to 2016 to establish panel data,and uses a panel-vector autoregressive model to study the dynamic relationship between the size of inland ports and economic growth.It selects the growth rate of freight volume as the representative variable for the size of inland ports.As the results showed,there is a long-run equilibrium relationship between the scale of inland ports and regional economic growth.As the scale of inland ports increase,the regional freight traffic would increase,and thus the frequency of regional trade would increase.As a result,regional economic growth would be facilitated.Meanwhile,the regional economic growth would in turn further facilitate the growth of freight volume.In a word,the construction of inland ports and economic development are both cause and effect for each other.(3)Degree on how the construction of inland ports influences the economic growththis paper takes the current GDP growth rate as the dependent variable and takes growth rate of freight volume as the representative variable for the size of inland ports.In order to eliminate the endogenousness between economic growth and freight volume growth,the paper takes growth rate of freight volume in the first phase of lag as the core independent variable.In order to better explain the influences caused by inland ports instead of the total freight volume of the city,the paper adds 3 characteristic variables for inland ports(whether a special customs supervision zone has been established,whether a land port is set up,and whether the city is operating the Central-Europe Classes),and multiply the growth rate of freight volume with the characteristic variables respectively to form the interaction terms,which are taken as the other core independent variable.Meanwhile,this paper introduces six control variables(openness to the outside world,labor input,fiscal expenditure,investment,industrial structure,and human capital variables).The regression results indicate that the inland ports on the Silk Road Economic Belt have a significant positive impact on regional economic growth.Currently,there are 3 main methods for the influence mechanism:(1)the set-up of customs ports facilitates the freight transportation;(2)the establishment of special customs supervision zones help cluster the port-centered industries and thus expand the supply of goods and the size of freight volume;(3)the operation of China-Europe Classes facilitate the development of international transportation and trade.As the freight volume increases,the regional economy grows. |
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