The Resource Reallocation Effects Of Major Transportation Infrastructure

The construction of transportation infrastructure affects the efficiency of resource allocation in enterprises and promotes the optimization of factors such as capital and labor across companies,industries,and regions.Major transportation infrastructure,which is generally planned and funded by the government,has long construction times,wide-ranging impacts,and requires significant investment.Therefore,it is a highly anticipated project that has both public and economic benefits.Studying its impact on resource allocation can help to comprehensively understand the cost-benefit of engineering construction and improve the scientific nature of government investment decisions.Taking the Runyang Yangtze River Bridge in Jiangsu Province as an example,using industrial enterprise data from 1999 to 2007 and employing a difference-in-differences method,this paper conducts empirical analysis of the resource reallocation effects of the bridge.Based on a monopoly competition model,the mechanism of the resource reallocation effects of transportation facilities is examined from the perspectives of transportation and enterprise entry,exit and output.Furthermore,this paper measures the increase in output efficiency brought by optimizing resource allocation,based on the framework of Hsieh&Klenow(2009)and Wen(2019).Finally,robustness checks are performed using methods such as variable change measurement,propensity score matching,sample expansion and placebo tests.The research findings show that: Firstly,major transportation infrastructure plays a role in resource reallocation,which narrows the efficiency gap between enterprises,increases the output share of high-efficiency enterprises and promotes efficiency improvements in surrounding enterprises.Specifically,the construction of Runyang Bridge has brought about a production efficiency improvement of approximately 10-20%.Secondly,the exit of low-efficiency enterprises,entry and accelerating output growth of high-efficiency enterprises are the main reasons of the reallocation effects.Thirdly,industry category and the proportion of state-owned assets affect the size of the reallocation effects.Light industries benefit from their low market barriers and low transfer costs,which allow them to better utilize the market access and factor price advantages brought by transportation infrastructure,resulting in more efficiency improvements compared to heavy industries.Industries with a high proportion of state-owned assets can take advantages of financing,industrial policies and factor allocation,which allow them to improve production efficiency more quickly.The innovation of the paper mainly lies in two aspects.Firstly,it quantitatively measures the extent to which the construction of transportation infrastructure improves regional productivity,providing a basis for more objective evaluation of the cost-benefit of major infrastructure investments.Secondly,using a latitude and longitude positioning method in the sampling process is more precise than previous methods that relied on administrative boundaries.Against the backdrop of China gradually becoming a transportation powerhouse,this paper proposes corresponding policy recommendations for the layout and planning of major transportation infrastructure,which have guiding significance for regional economic development and industrial upgrading.