Transport infrastructure (TI) plays a crucial role in socioeconomic development. The increase of TI inequality, an all-pervading phenomenon in both developed and developing countries, has been an obstacle to sustainable economic growth. The relationship between TI inequality and economic growth has attracted considerable interest over the past three decades. However, the relationship remains obscure, and people find it impossible to utilize to develop economies. This study collected a panel of empirical data from 1982 to 2015 from China to calculate the Gini coefficient and conduct the Granger causality test. The data analysis results show that TI inequality is not always conducive to economic growth. A softening TI inequality helps address the issues of uneven economic growth across regions in the long term. The short-term effects of improving TI inequality at the national level are reflected in the network effect. In addition, the “social filters” facilitate the region to absorb the economic benefits brought by the improvement of TI inequality. These findings offer a way to address the increase of TI inequality and shed light on the ways to improve transport investment from the perspective of economic growth.
Transport infrastructure (TI) has become one of the primary drivers for sustainable economic growth and social progress. However, a wider take-up is currently inhibited in fast developing regions (FDRs) by many barriers, which have not been explored explicitly in previous studies. In this study, a three-dimensional framework (i.e., macro environment, local environment, and the construction process) is proposed to structure the barriers in a reasonable way. Professionals' opinions on the importance of the barriers are collected through questionnaire survey. The survey results were analyzed by the ranking analysis technique. It is found that the top five barriers are "difficulty in survey and design during the construction process", "weak support from economy", "insufficient funding", "harsh regional climate", and "cost overrun". Further analysis, based on a factor analysis, indicates that these critical barriers could be grouped into three clusters: "administration on transport infrastructure", "construction technology and cost management", and "geographical and economic conditions". The research findings demonstrate the usefulness of the proposed framework, and the implication is that a barriers-based checklist favors stakeholders to improve the efficiency and sustainability of TI development in FDRs. Although the study is situated in China, it sheds light on the subject in other developing countries.
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