Impact of high-speed rail on regional economic disparity in China

This paper investigates a fundamental question related to the massive railway infrastructure development in China. What is the impact of high-speed rail (HSR) on regional economic disparity? The question is investigated from three perspectives. First, the influence of HSR on regional economic disparity is discussed theoretically from the perspective of New Economic Geography. Second, the variation in economic disparity at both the national and regional levels is investigated using three indexes: the weighted coefficient of variation, the Theil index and the Gini index. Third, the linkages between regional economic growth and HSR is measured empirically from a quantitative and qualitative perspective using an endogenous growth modelling framework with a panel data covering the period 2000–2014. The rail network density is adopted as a proxy to reflect the quantity change in rail investment. Three accessibility indicators (weighted average travel time, potential accessibility and daily accessibility) are introduced to capture the improvement of HSR transport quality. Our findings confirm that regional economic disparity has been decreased since the development of HSR. HSR has promoted regional economic convergence in China. Specifically, the positive effect of rail network density on regional economic growth is found to be significant in the East and North, whereas the positive effect of accessibility change is found to be more significant in the Middle Reaches of Yangtze River, the Southwest and the South China.